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BY-PATHS 

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Bible  Knowledge 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


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THt  Religious  Tract  Society. 
56,  Paternoster  Row.  London. 


CLEOPATRA'S  NEEDLE.  With 
an  Exposition  of  the  Hiero- 
glyphics   2 

FRESH  LIGHT  FROM  THE 
ANCIENT  MONUMENTS.  By 
A.  H.  SayCe,  LL.D 3 

RECENT  DISCOVERIES  ON  THE 
TEMPLE  HILL  AT  JERUSALEM. 
By  the  Rev.  J.  King,  M.A.       ...  2 

BABYLONIAN  LIFE  &   HISTORY. 

By  E.  A.  Wallis  Budge,  M.A.    3 

GALILEE  IN  THE  TIME  OF 
CHRIST.  By  Selah  Merrill, 
D.D 2 

EGYPT  &  SYRIA.  Their  Physical 
Features  in  Relation  to  Bible 
History.  By  Sir  J.  W.  Dawson, 
F.R.S.      3 

ASSYRIA:  ITS  PRINCES,  PRIESTS, 
AND  PEOPLE.  By  A.  H.  Sayce, 
LL.D ...         ...  3 

THE   DWELLERS  ON  THE  NILE. 

By  E.  A.  Wallis  Budge,  M.A.     3 

THE  DISEASES  OF  THE   BIBLE. 

By  Sir  J.  Risdon  Bennett,  M.D., 
F.R.S.,  Ex-President  of  the 
Royal  College  of  Physicians  ...  2 


s    d. 


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Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/earlyspreadofrelOOedkirich 


THE    EARLY    SPREAD    OF 

RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 


ESPECIALLY 


IN    THE    FAR    EAST 


HORACE    HART,    PRINTER   TO   THE  UNIVERSITY 


i3B-pt!)s  of  mW  lanofaleirgt 

XIX 


THE   EARLY  SPREAD  OF 


RELIGIOUS    IDEAS 


ESPECIALLY 


IN    THE    FAR    EAST 


BY 


JOSEPH    EDKINS,   B.A.,  D.D. 

SHANGHAI,  CHINA 

Author  <?/'  Chinese  Buddhism^'  '  Religion  in  China,'  '  China's  Place  in  Philology ' 
*  Evolution  of  Hebrew^  6^c. 


THE   RELIGIOUS   TRACT   SOCIETY 
56  Paternoster   Row,   and  65  St.   Paul's  Churchyard 

1893 


RF^SE 


JJC^i 


CONTENTS 


PREFACE 

Origin  of  this  Book 9 

Its  aim  is  to  prove,  mainly  from  the  facts  of  language,  that  ages  before 
Abraham  there  was  a  revelation,  and  that  this  is  recoverable      .        .        9 

CHAPTER   I 

THE   PRAE-MOSAIC    ORIGIN    OF   THE   BOOK   OF   GENESIS 

Value  of  Ancient  Literature  as  a  proof  of  Primaeval  Revelation       .        .      13 

The  Book  of  Genesis  the  prime  authority 15 

Genesis  prae-Mosaic : 

1.  Because  of  its  knowledge  of  the  dispersion  of  the  nations  .         .       15 

2.  Because  its  writers  knew  Cuneiform  and  used  the  Phoenician 

Alphabet .15 

3.  Because  of  its  Genealogies 15 

A  Genealogy  accompanied  the  bones  of  Joseph  to  Palestine     ...       16 

Genesis  is  made  up  of  Genealogies 17 

Writing  invented  in  Babylonia  about  4000  B.  c 17 

Genesis  was  probably  made  for  Joseph     .         .         .        :        .         .         .18 
The  Sacred   Books   of   the   East    contain   fragments    of   the  Pristine 

Revelation 18 

The  value  of  Language  in  this  argument 19 

Historical  Sequence  of  Language 19 

The  evidence  favours  the  view  that  man's  progress  has  been  downward 

and  not  upward 20 

CHAPTER    H 

PRIMAEVAL    MONOTHEISM    IN    CHINA   AND    PERSIA 

The  Chinese  Monotheists  from  the  earliest  times 22 

The  four  Sacrifices  of  Shun,  B.  c.  2300 22 

Proofs  that  Persian  ideas  were  introduced  into  China  about  B.  c.  3000     .  23 

Zoroaster  not  a  Divinity  but  a  Sage 25 


1 8G1 61 


6  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Persian  Dualism  introduced  into  China  about  B.  c.  2800  ....  26 

Ancestral  worship  prevalent  before  China  was  populated          ...  27 

Hence  it  is  one  of  the  Earliest  Forms  of  Religious  Worship     ...  27 

Proofs  that  Monotheism  is  the  original  source  of  Polytheism  ...  29 
Persia  a  case  in  point ;  the  Persians  opposing  Polytheism  because  they 

beheved  that  Zoroaster  received  direct  revelations  from  Ormuzd          .  30 

Idea  of  Revelation  in  the  She  king  very  similar  to  that  in  the  Bible  .  30 
The  Chinese  Book  of  Odes  represents  verbal    revelation    by  God  to 

Wen  wang 3^ 

Other  instances  of  the  same  kind 3^ 

Hence  beyond  the  Semitic  area  same  class  of  Religious  Ideas  found  as 

within  it 32 

Persia  and  China  as  well  as  Palestine  show  faith  in  one  God  who 

revealed  Himself  to  men 32 

Modern  Tauism  a  degeneration  of  Primitive  Rehgion      ....  33 

CHAPTER   III 

THE   PHILOLOGICAL   HISTORY    OF   THE    NAMES   FOR   GOD 

The  Early  Monotheism :  Chinese,  Persian,  Semitic,  and  Aryan  ;  derived 

not  from  Polytheism  but  Revelation 34 

Thus  in  Pentateuch  teaching  of  names  of  God  precedes  consolidation  of 

national  life 35 

The  Monotheism  of  the  Pentateuch  an  argument  for  its  age  ...  35 
Only  by  assigning  the  Pentateuch  to  the  age  of  Moses  is  it  in  its  true 

chronological  position 36 

Careful  study  of  the  names  of  God  confirms  this  view       ....  36 

Chinese  word  Ti  may  be  Deus,  ©eo?,  Dewa,  Diu,  and  also  Elohim  .         .  36 

Evidence  adduced  in  favour  of  this  view 37 

CHAPTER   IV 

HOW   RELIGIOUS   IDEAS   SPREAD   IN   THE   ANCIENT   WORLD 

Ideas  travelled  slowly  in  Ancient  Times 43 

Babylonian  Account  of  Creation  spread  to  Palestine        .         .         .        .  43 

Spread  of  the  practice  of  Sacrifice 44 

Flood  not  known  in  China  in  early  ages 45 

Traditions  of  Chinese  Classics  antediluvian 46 

,,          ,,  Tauism  and  Buddhism  post-diluvian 46 

Early  Religious  Ideas  imported  into  China  were  pure,  the  later  corrupt  .  47 

Same  process  took  place  in  India  ;  the  Vedas  being  purer  than  Buddhism  .  47 

Persia  another  case  in  point 48 


CONTENTS  7 

PAGE 

Realism  should  be  urged  as  against  Myth  all  down  the  stream  of  time     .  49 

The  Old  Testament  worship  of  Baal  is  of  Babylonian  origin  ...  50 
Aryan,    Semitic,    and    Egyptian    Mythology    founded    on    Babylonian 

Astronomy 50 

Documents  of  Genesis  ancient  because  there  is  no  Polytheistic  element 

in  them 50 

When  did  the  idea  of  a  trinity  in  the  Divine  Nature  first  arise  ?        .         .  52 

Use  of  Elohim  in  the  Pentateuch 53 

The  Hebrew  account  of  Creation  derived  from  Babylonia  ...  54 
Those  points  in  which  Babylonian  and  Semitic  ideas  agree  are  the  result 

of  Primitive  Revelation 55 

The  Philosophic  Trinitarianism  in  which  China,  India,  Egypt,  and  Greece 

agree  has  its  root  in  Revelation 55 

The  Karen  traditions  in  Burma 57 

The  Magic  of  later  ages  a  degeneration  from  Early  Revelation  ;  Truth 

precedes  Fiction 58 

Origin  of  Mythology  explained  on  this  theory 59 

The  facts  of  Language  and  History  in  the  East  support  the  History  as 

given  in  Genesis 61 

Monotheism  preceded  Bel,  Merodach,  Nebo,  and  Istar  ....  62 
Identity  of  Moral  Sentiments  in  all  nations  possessing  an  Ancient  Litera- 
ture is  a  further  proof  of  Primitive  Monotheism 63 

Chinese  and  other  Divinations  are  a  degradation  of  purer  Knowledge 

and  Practice 64 

Place  of  the  Tree  of  Life  in  this  argument 66 

Evidence  offered  by  Polynesia 67 

Neither  Spencer  nor  Robertson  Smith  solves  the  problem  of  Origin  of 

Religion  among  the  Semites 67 

CHAPTER  V 


POLYTHEISM    IN    CHINA 

Star-worship  the  early  form  of  Chinese  Mythology 
Course  of  Polytheistic  development  . 
Chinese  Astrology  Babylonian  in  its  origin 
The  Worship  of  the  Five  Emperors  . 
Confucius,  Mencius,  and  Lauts'i 
Tauism  due  to  foreign  influence 
Evidence  of  Early  Mythologic  names 
The  Place  and  Influence  of  Chii-yuen 

,,  ,,  the  Shan  Hai  King 

Ancient  carvings  near  Tsi-nan  fu  and  Kia-siang  hien 
The  chief  results  of  the  argument  summarized  . 


69 
69 
74 
76 

77 
78 
81 
85 
91 
93 
97 


8  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  VI 

THE    MORAL    IDEAS    OF   THE    CHINESE 

PAGE 

Confucian  Literature  exhibits  the  idea  God  is  always  on  the  side  of  virtue  99 

The  same  is  true  of  the  earliest  Chinese  Classics 100 

Proofs  of  the  genuineness  of  the  Shu  Kitig 100 

It  portrays  Chinese  morals  2300  B.C. 100 

This  the  Chinese  *  golden  age ' 102 

Chinese  teaching  on  Morality  was  as  elevated  4,000  years  ago  as  it  is  now  103 

Where  did  this  Primaeval  Morality  originate  ? 103 

Study  of  Etymological  Forms  of  Words  expressing  moral  ideas  .  104 
The  oldest  language  leans  to  the  intuitional  knowledge  of  right  and 

wrong 106 

Chinese  Monotheism  developed  moral  ideas 109 

The  Ethical  Purity  of  Chinese  literature no 

The  general  Ethical  agreement  of  China,  India,  Greece,  and  Palestine 

looks  back  to  the  earlier  age  when  God  spoke  to  man  .  .  .111 
Modem  Chinese  morality  a  deterioration,  and  why  it  is  so  .         -113 

CHAPTER  VII 

EARLY    SPREAD    OF   THE    BELIEF    IN    A    FUTURE    STATE 

Doctrine  of  a  Future  State  early  spread  from  the  Persians  into  China  116 

Chinese  idea  of  the  Soul 118 

Influence  of  Persia  upon  Japan 121 

Chinese  Sacrifices  imply  a  Future  Life 122 

Effects  of  Life  upon  Language 123 

Analysis  of  Chinese  words  bearing  on  this  theme 125 

The  Tauist  doctrine 126 

Teaching  in  the  How  Han  shu 131 

Tauists  borrowed  their  ideas  of  a  Future  State  from  the  Buddhists   .        .  133 

But  both  show  signs  of  Persian  influence 133 

The  Tauist  doctrine  of  immortality 135 

Confucius  denied  it 136 

Effect  of  want  of  religious  faith  in  China .138 

The  early  spread  of  the  doctrine  of  immortality 139 

Chronological  Table 141 


PREFACE 


The  contents   of  this  little  book  were  delivered  as 

lectures  at  the  Indian  Institute,  Oxford ;  at  New  College, 

Hampstead  ;  at  Cheshunt  College ;  and  in  the  Memorial 

,  Hall,  Farringdon  Street,  at   a  meeting  of  the  London 

Congregational  Union. 

The  lectures  have  now  been  changed  into  chapters/\ 
and  various  additions  and  corrections  have  been  made. 
The  main  idea  through  all  has  been  to  sketch  briefly 
the  chief  points  in  primaeval  religious  teaching.  Having 
lived  among  the  adherents  of  Eastern  religions  for  forty- 
five  years^  I  have  become  strongly  convinced  that  what 
good  teaching  their  books  contain  is  derived  from  early 
revelation.  If  research  be  carefully  conducted,  it  will  be 
possible  to  recover  the  primaeval  history  of  mankind  in 
religion,  as  in  other  branches  of  human  progress.  The 
result  will  be,  as  our  aim  ought  to  be, 

*  To  vindicate  Eternal  Providence, 
And  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man.' 

The  aim  of  this  book  is  to  draw  attention  in  a  brief 
way  to  the  mass  of  information  upon  primaeval  religion 


lO  PREFACE 

gathered  in  ancient  Oriental  literature,  as  well  as  in  the 
languages  of  Eastern  countries.  Treasures  of  knowledge 
are  enshrined  in  that  literature  and  in  those  languages, 
and  if  we  wish  to  learn  the  early  history  of  the  idea  of 
God  we  must  seek  it  in  the  ages  before  the  Semites 
and  Indo-Europeans  began  their  career.  The  knowledge 
of  God  in  the  human  consciousness  reached  its  second 
stage  about  five  thousand  years  ago,  when  these  races 
settled  down  in  the  lands  they  now  occupy.  The 
Hindus  and  Persians  left  Europe  and  came  back  to 
Asia,  the  home  of  their  forefathers,  fighting  their  way 
as  they  came.  The  Semites  were  driven  by  this  inva- 
sion from  their  temporary  home  in  Central  Asia  and 
Persia  to  Arabia  and  Mesopotamia.  Language  shows 
that  mankind  began  their  life  on  the  earth  with  a 
common  speech,  worship,  and  religion.  If  language  is 
treated  fairly,  and  the  comparison  of  the  vocabularies 
patiently  pursued,  this  fact  comes  clearly  into  view. 

In  the  ages  before  Abraham  there  was  revelation,  and 
it  is  recoverable.  This  is  my  main  point.  I  have  aimed 
to  prove  it  and  to  illustrate  it.  The  first  revelations  were 
made  to  men  who  preceded  on  the  chart  of  time  both 
the  Chinese  in  China  and  the  Accadians  in  Babylonia. 
The  Accadians  inherited  the  tradition  of  those  revela- 
tions in  Babylonia  and  the  Chinese  in  China.  In  the 
providence  of  God  it  was  by  genealogical  records  in  the 
family  of  Shem,  as  we  have  them  in  Genesis,  that  the 
progress  of  religion  from  the  beginning  was  to  be  pre- 
served to  coming  ages  ;  but  we  must  also  diligently 
search  into  the  Babylonian  traditions.     The  custody  of 


PREFACE  II 

primitive  revelation  was  left  not  only  to  the  Jews,  but  to 
all  those  races  to  whom  it  came.  The  revelations  made 
to  Moses  and  the  prophets  were  specially  entrusted  to 
the  care  of  the  Jews.  The  monotheism  of  China  and 
Persia  are  a  survival  of  the  revelation  made  to  Enoch, 
Noah,  and  other  primaeval  patriarchs.  It  was  given  to 
both  these  countries  to  preserve  the  immemorial  tradi- 
tion of  burnt  sacrifices,  of  the  duty  of  prayer,  of  a  divinely 
taught  moral  law,  and  of  the  doctrine  of  a  future  life. 

In  an  age  when  the  eye  of  criticism  is  directed  with 
an  intensity  never  exceeded  to  the  work  of  the  Hebrew 
prophets,  there  is  need  of  a  testimony  to  the  exceedingly 
important  fact  that  the  revelations  made  to  Noah  and 
Enoch  are  recorded  not  only  in  the  first  book  of  Moses, 
but  are  to  be  found,  interpenetrated  with  human  thoughts 
and  mixed  and  modified  in  a  hundred  ways,  in  the  works 
of  Chinese,  Hindu,  and  Persian  sages.  The  idea  of 
God  became  trinitarian  in  China  and  India  in  the  later 
development  of  religious  thought  in  those  countries. 
But  it  became  polytheistic  too,  and  polytheistic  religion 
grew  more  luxuriantly  as  time  went  on.  God  in  the 
beginning,  when  they  were  preparing  to  migrate  from 
their  original  home,  imparted  a  real  light  to  mankind, 
but  it  was  bedimmed  in  the  course  of  ages,  and  human 
thought  was  substituted  for  divine  truth  in  all  the  many 
empires  and  kingdoms  of  the  East.  Though  bedimmed, 
that  light  was,  however,  not  obliterated,  and  it  is  the 
duty  of  the  Christian  investigator,  in  seeking  to  recover 
primaeval  religious  teaching,  not  only  to  decipher  cunei- 
form tablets,  but  to  study  with  a  purpose  the  classical 


J  2  PREFACE 

books  of  all  Eastern  countries.  He  must  also  inquire 
into  all  trans-oceanic  migrations,  and  their  effects  as 
seen  in  mythological  tradition,  in  islands  scattered  over 
the  Pacific  Ocean  and  in  America.  Further,  he  must 
collect  all  religious  words  in  the  languages  of  the  East, 
compare  them  together  and  impartially  judge  how 
matters  really  stand.  In  carrying  out  this  programme 
of  work,  my  firm  conviction  is  that  he  will  find  himself 
confronted  by  irresistible  proofs  of  the  original  unity  of 
language  and  religion.  Nor  will  he  fail  to  recognize 
that  the  primaeval  gift  of  divine  revelation  was  one  of  the 
chief  efficient  forces  which  saved  men  from  falling  into 
barbarism,  and  led  them  to  the  invention  of  all  the 
civilized  arts. 


CHAPTER   I 

THE    PRAE-MOSAIC   ORIGIN   OF   THE   BOOK   OF  GENESIS 

\ 
The  early  invention  of  writing  in  Asia  has  greatly  ^ 

added  to  the  value  of  religious  tradition  in  Asiatic 
countries.  The  habit  of  recording  historical  events 
secured  from  oblivion  many  interesting  fragments  of 
ancient  usages  and  occurrences.  From  the  first,  God 
communicated  His  will  to  His  creature  man  in  the  form 
of  revelation.  Born  with  an  animal  nature,  man  also  had'^ 
intellectual  and  moral  powers,  with  a  divine  light  and 
spiritual  instincts,  leading  him  to  respond  to  the  com- 
mands and  instruction  of  his  Creator.  The  primaeval 
religious  history  of  our  race  has  left  many  vestiges  in 
Asiatic  literature. 

In  China,  India,  Tartary,  Tibet,  and  Japan  the  earlyx 
inhabitants  when  they  arrived  would  retain  features  of  ^ 
the  first  revelations  imparted  to  mankind  before  the  days 
of  Noah  and  Abraham.  This  we  see  in  the  wide  exten- 
sion of  monotheism  in  China,  Persia,  Arabia,  and  Pales- 
tine. The  people  in  these  countries  have  always  felt 
themselves  under  a  divine  law  of  right  and  wrong.  The 
belief  in  a  future  state  has  widely  prevailed,  but  it  has 
been  marked  by  less  of  assured  certainty,  and  found  its 
way  more  slowly  from  kingdom  to  kingdom,  than  either 


14  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

monotheism  or  the  moral  law.  There  has  also  been 
belief  in  revelation  and  the  incarnation  of  God  in  human 
form,  as  also  in  a  method  of  redemption  from  sin,  and  in 
the  efficacy  of  prayer.  There  is,  in  fact,  so  much  that  is 
good  and  true  in  the  ideas  of  the  old  Asiatic  nations  that 
we  are  compelled  to  recognize  a  divine  light  guiding 
mankind  in  the  early  ages  of  the  world.  The  Sosiosh  ^ 
of  the  Persians,  the  Buddha  of  the  Hindus,  indicate 
religious  faith  and  hope,  and  point  back  to  a  time  when 
God  spoke  to  mankind  by  the  lips  of  prophets  more 
plainly  than  afterwards.  For  when  the  great  human 
family  had  become  scattered,  and  had  departed  from 
the  seats  of  primaeval  revelation,  they  were  left  by  God 
more  to  themselves. 

Divine  revelation  did  not  begin  with  Moses,  nor  with 
Abraham,  nor  with  Noah.  It  began  with  man's  appear- 
ance on  the  earth.  Man  received  from  his  Maker  the 
faculties  of  the  soul,  and  from  that  time  forward  there  was 
revelation.  The  same  powers,  intellectual  and  spiritual, 
which  enabled  mankind  to  construct  the  primaeval  lan- 
guage, also  rendered  religion  possible.  The  farther  we  go 
back  in  our  inquiries  into  language  and  ancient  religious 
tradition,  the  purer  will  be  the  form  of  men's  ideas  on 
religion  at  which  we  shall  arrive,  and  the  more  valuable 
the  results  we  may  expect  to  recover  from  those  sources 
of  archaic  knowledge. 
/-■  Language  itself  has  to  be  searched,  and  the  vocabu- 
laries of  the  various  families  compared,  that  we  may 
know  when  and  how  mankind  obtained  clear  ideas  of 
God,  of  the  soul,  of  moral  law,  and  of  the  future  state. 

Among  the  books  to  be  examined,  to  teach  us  what 

^  Son  of  Zoroaster.     Comes  to  free  men  from  death  and  decay. 


OF  THf  > 

UNIVE- 
PRAE-MOSAIC  ORIGIN  0\BOOK  OF  GENESIS       1 5 

the  primaeval  revelation  was,  the  Book  of  Genesis  stands  / 
first  in  importance.  The  authority  of  this  book  is 
sustained  by  the  testimony  of  the  other  portions  of  the 
Old  Testament,  and  also  by  the  use  made  of  it  in  the 
New  Testament  by  our  Lord  and  His  Apostles.  The 
Christian  Church  receives  the  account  of  the  primaeval 
history  of  mankind,  found  in  the  Book  of  Genesis,  as  the 
ancient  Word  of  God,  on  the  testimony  of  the  New 
Testament  and  that  of  the  Jewish  Church.  By  the 
criticism  of  the  day  we  have  learned  more  respecting  the 
parts  of  which  the  first  book  of  the  Pentateuch  is  made 
up.  Criticism  has  shown  that  it  consists  of  two  sets  of 
documents  ;  but  as  to  its  age  we  shall  do  well  to  regard 
it  as  pre-Mosaic  for  the  following  reasons : — 

I.  The  knowledge  the  writers  possess  of  Babylonia 
and  the  dispersion  of  nations,  as  well  as  of  Egyptian 
affairs,  is  that  of  authors  who  could  only  belong  to  the 
times  before  Moses. 

1,  The  inscribed  tablets  from  Tel  el  Amarna  show 
that  in  the  age  of  Egyptian  sovereignty  over  Palestine 
before  the  days  of  Moses,  the  Babylonian  writing  was  in 
use  for  all  official  purposes.  The  most  likely  explana- 
tion of  the  origin  of  Genesis  is,  then,  that  it  was  a  history 
compiled  by  writers  who  read  cuneiform  Babylonian 
tablets,  and  wrote  themselves  with  the  new  Phoenician 
alphabet,  just  then  getting  into  general  use. 

3.  The  Book  of  Genesis  is  genealogical,  and  as  such 
would  accompany  the  remains  of  Joseph  to  Palestine. 
In  Asiatic  kingdoms  just  such  books  of  genealogy,  mixed 
with  history  as  the  Book  of  Genesis,  are  buried  with 
monarchs  and  persons  of  distinction. 

Josephus  says  that  the  priests  of  his  nation  all  carefully 


l6  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

preserved  their  genealogies,  in  Babylon  and  Egypt  as 
well  as  in  Palestine.  The  preservation  of  Genesis  is  in 
part  due  to  the  care  of  priests,  and,  like  the  Books  of 
Chronicles,  it  contains  first  genealogies  and  then  detailed 
narratives.  A  copy  of  such  a  book  as  this  would, 
according  to  Oriental  custom,  be  conveyed  to  the  tomb 
of  any  ruler  of  a  country  or  province  and  buried  with 
him.  When  Moses  took  with  him  the  bones  of  Joseph, 
such  a  book  as  this  would  naturally  accompany  them. 
In  Genesis  were  embraced  the  family  records  of  Adam, 
Noah,  Shem,  Terah,  J^saac,  Ishmael,  Esau  and  Jacob. 
The  sentence  '  the  book  of  the  generations  of,'  or  '  these 
are  the  generations  of,'  indicates  genealogical  records  in 
reference  to  the  individual  mentioned.  Such  records 
were  written  during  the  lifetime  of  the  person,  and 
a  copy  placed  with  him  in  his  tomb  after  his  death.  In 
the  third  volume  of  the  Chinese  Classics^  Professor 
Legge  has  translated  a  Chinese  genealogical  record  of 
a  Chinese  sovereign  prince  called  the  '  Bamboo  Book  of 
Chronological  Records^.'  It  contains  also  a  history  of 
China,  and  was  found  in  the  tomb  of  a  sovereign  prince 
five  centuries  after  his  interment.  A  person  of  Joseph's 
rank  would  have  such  a  book  compiled  for  his  use 
while  living. 

In  the  time  of  the  kings  of  Judah  and  IsraeJ,  such 
records  were  called  sepher  dibre  hayamim,  the  Book  of 
Acts  of  Days  of  any  king,  or  of  the  kings  generally. 
The  name  followed  the  title  of  the  book^  being  connected 
by  the  preposition  le  '  of.'  This  usage  would  commence 
with  King  Saul.  For  the  chronicles  of  the  Persian  kings 
the  same  name  is  used  in  Esther  vi.  i. 

^  Chu  shu  ki  nien. 


PRAE-MOSAIC  ORIGIN  OF  BOOK  OF  GENESIS       1/ 

The  Book  of  Genesis  differs  from  the  Books  of  Kings 
and  Chronicles  in  the  use  of  the  phrases  '  book  of  the 
generations/  '  these  are  the  generations.'  Though  there 
are  many  genealogies  in  the  First  Book  of  Chronicles 
these  phrases  do  not  occur.  In  Matt.  i.  i,  the  singular  is 
employed,  '  the  book  of  the  generation  of  Jesus  the  son 
of  David.'  Thus  Genesis  stands  alone  as  a  prae-Mosaic 
book,  framed  according  to  Babylonian,  Egyptian,  and 
contemporary  Palestinian  models ;  compiled  by  the 
direction  possibly  of  successive  heads  of  clans  or  persons 
of  elevated  positions  in  society,  like  Joseph.  Joseph  as 
viceroy  would  require  such  a  book  as  Genesis  to  serve 
as  his  family  genealogy,  supplemented  by  history. 

The  Book  of  Genesis,  then,  was  a  book  made  up  of 
genealogical  records  carried  back  to  the  first  ancestor, 
and  it  consists  of  documents  compiled  in  succession,  to 
be  afterwards  laid  up  in  the  libraries  and  tombs  of  the 
clan  patriarchs  for  whose  use  the  authors  prepared  them. 
In  them  we  find  ground  for  regarding  the  languages  of 
Babylonia  as  the  first  in  which  divine  revelation  was 
recorded.  The  reason  of  this  was  that  writing  was  first 
invented  in  that  country. 

Before  the  introduction  of  cuneiform  writing  revelation 
and  sacred  history  could  only  be  conveyed  by  oral 
tradition,  as  the  Vedas  were  long  preserved  in  India.  The 
invention  of  writing  in  Babylonia,  about  B.C.  4000,  was 
followed  by  Egyptian  and  Chinese  modes  of  writing, 
which  were  both  of  them  based  on  the  Babylonian.  The 
origin  of  Hebrew  literature  was  in  transcription  and 
translation  from  cuneiform  documents,  and  the  activity 
of  Moses  as  the  chief  founder  belonged  to  the  period  of 
the  early  spread  of  the  Phoenician  writing.     The  Books 

B 


1 8  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

of  Genesis  should  then,  according  to  this  view,  be 
regarded  as  Joseph's  book  of  genealogies,  made  in  the 
ancient  way  for  his  personal  use  in  the  Hebrew  language. 
It  would  be  chiefly  based  on  the  records  brought  by 
Jacob  from  Palestine. 

If  the  Book  of  Genesis  be  accepted  as  the  work  of 
scribes,  section  after  section  making  use  of  the  Phoenician 
mode  of  writing  in  the  time  of  the  patriarchs,  and  chiefly 
under  Joseph's  direction,  we  can  still  regard  it  as  a  book 
written  at  the  time  of  which  it  records  the  history.  The 
scribes  of  those  days  were  transcribers,  and  they  were  in 
the  employ  of  chiefs  of  clans.  A  prophecy  like  that  of 
Isaac  regarding  his  sons  when  he  was  old  and  his  eyes 
were  dim  would  be  written  down  by  the  scribe  he 
employed.  The  scribe  we  must  suppose  would  share  in 
Isaac's  faith,  devoutness,  and  inspiration.  We  see  in 
Genesis  that  the  genealogical  record  of  the  patriarchs 
was  the  germ  from  which  Hebrew  history  grew.  The 
evangelist  Matthew  wrote  his  Gospel  on  this  as  a  model, 
and  therefore  commenced  it  with  the  genealogy  of  Christ, 
and  continued  it  with  narrative.  But  invaluable  as  it  is 
the  Book  of  Genesis  is  in  the  early  parts  so  brief  and 
incomplete  that  we  are  obliged  to  look  beyond  it  for 
information,  and  must  make  search  in  the  Zendavesta, 
the  Vedas,  the  Chinese  sacred  books,  and  in  the  Buddhist 
/Sutras.  If  God  spoke  to  man  by  Adam,  Enos,  Enoch, 
and  Noah,  as  Christians  believe  He  did,  the  truths  and 
duties  He  taught  must  exist  in  some  form  in  the  litera- 
ture of  their  descendants,  among  whom  are  the  nations 
which  possess  these  sacred  books. 

Language  itself  furnishes  us  with  a  variety  of  divine 
names,  a  series  of  moral  terms,  and  a  mass  of  information 


PRAE-MOSAIC  ORIGIN  OF  BOOK  OF  GENESIS       1 9 

in  regard  to  the  spiritual  nature  of  man  and  his  ideas  on 
the  future  state.  We  place  the  languages  in  their  order. 
The  Hebrew  is  post-diluvian.  The  Chinese,  the  Mongol, 
the  Tibetan  are  older.  We  must  extend  our  chronology 
sufficiently  to  allow  of  the  growth  of  the  Mongol,  Tibetan, 
Chinese  and  some  other  forms  of  speech  in  the  Far  East. 
They  belong  to  the  antediluvian  as  well  as  to  the  post- 
diluvian ages.  Where  literature  fails  us  in  the  countries 
in  which  these  languages  are  spoken^  old  vocabularies 
come  to  our  aid.  Words  themselves  are  an  index  to  the 
religious  thinking  of  the  races  of  the  primaeval  worlds 
Traditions  of  a  written  sort  are  not  found  in  Tibet  and 
Mongolia.  In  such  countries  the  native  vocabularies 
contain  very  valuable  information  as  to  the  religious  and 
moral  state  of  the  primaeval  inhabitants  of  those  regions, 
and  so  also  does  Shamanism  in  both  these  countries. 
This  religion  is  very  little  known.  It  is  best  described 
by  the  Russians,  and  by  mediaeval  travellers  before 
Buddhism  had  supplanted  it  in  Mongolia.  In  Tibet  it 
is  the  Bon  religion.  In  Japan  it  is  the  Shinto.  In  China 
it  is  Tauism.  It  does  not  tell  us  much  of  elevated 
religious  truth.     But  it  has  to  be  studied. 

The  study  of  the  sacred  books  of  Eastern  nations  is 
an  easier  task.  A  literature  renders  religious  ideas 
intelligible.  The  translations  by  Darmesteter  and  West 
in  the  Sacred  Books  of  the  East  open  to  us  the  once 
inaccessible  lore  of  the  Parsees.  The  Zendavesta  helps 
us  to  acquire  a  knowledge  of  those  dogmas  of  the  ancient 
religion  of  the  Persians  which  were  propagated  by  them 
among  the  populations  of  India,  China,  Tartary,  and 
Japan  with  the  most  remarkable  results. 

Then    there    are   the   sacred   books  of  the   Hindus, 
B  % 


20  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

committed  to  writing  about  B.C.  300.  They  were  written 
by  a  people  firmly  wedded  to  ceremonies,  devoted  to 
metaphysical  argument,  extremely  fond  of  legend,  de- 
lighting to  weave  cosmogonies. 

We  also  have  to  make  search  in  the  ancient  history 
and  poetry  of  the  Chinese,  in  their  books  of  religious 
philosophy,  ritual,  and  divination.  Six  volumes  by 
Professor  Legge  in  the  Sacred  Books  of  the  East  open  a 
rich  field  for  inquiry. 

A  wide  and  fertile  source  of  information  is  found  in 
translations  from  Assyrian  and  Egyptian  documents 
recently  deciphered.  In  Records  of  the  Past  invaluable 
fragments  of  religious  teaching  have  been  made 
accessible. 

The  spirit  with  which  the  search  for  vestiges  of 
primaeval  revelation  should  be  conducted  ought  to  be 
that  of  devout  recognition  of  God's  truth  wherever  we 
find  it.  With  this  should  be  conjoined  fidelity  to 
fact,  nor  ought  the  investigator  to  forget  that  humanity 
is  God's  child,  and  as  such  man  at  first  received  a  divine 
training.  '  God  made  man  upright,  but  they  have  sought 
out  many  inventions/  or  thoughts  of  their  own  imagi- 
nation and  methods  not  revealed,  but  invented  by 
themselves.  Further,  the  primaeval  history  of  man 
should  be  looked  on  as  capable  of  recovery.  The 
conditions  and  environment  of  man  at  the  beginning  were 
simple,  but  not  savage,  but  we  soon  find  mankind 
treading  the  downward  path.  Degradation  becomes 
the  law  of  man's  life.  In  Dr.  Robertson  Smith's  work 
on  the  religion  of  the  Semites  he  traces  Judaism  to  the 
local  religions  of  Syria  and  Arabia.  Deborah  the 
prophetess  sat  under  a  palm-tree  to  judge  Israel.     He, 


PRAE-MOSAIC  ORIGIN  OF  BOOK  OF  GENESIS       21 

without  necessity  apparently,  connects  this  with  tree 
worship,  which  was  not  uncommon  in  that  part  of  the 
world  in  ancient  times.  My  idea  is,  on  the  contrary,  that 
we  should  search  for  the  truths  of  which  local  religious 
ideas  are  degraded  forms.  Truth  was  at  first  divine,  and 
as  we  know  what  primitive  Christianity  became  in 
mediaeval  Europe,  so  we  should  in  heathen  customs  and 
beliefs  search  for  the  divine  elements  from  which  they 
sprang.  Christian  theology  suffers  if  we  trace  the 
ancient  laws  and  usages  of  the  Jews  to  a  heathen  origin. 
If  on  the  other  hand  we  trace  heathen  beliefs  to  a  divine 
origin,  we  may  hope  to  aid  the  Christian  cause  among 
intelligent  heathens,  who  will  accept  our  religion  more 
readily  when  we  discover  something  divine  in  their  own^. 
And  now  how  far  can  we  lift  the  veil  which  hangs 
over  primaeval  times  and  penetrate  into  the  religion  of 
the  earliest  men  ? 

^  For  other  proofs  of  the  prae-Mosaic  character  of  Genesis,  Principal 
Cave's  Inspiration  of  the  Old  Testament  may  be  consulted. 


CHAPTER  II 

PRIMAEVAL   MONOTHEISM   IN   CHINA   AND   PERSIA 

/iHE  origin  of  the  ideas  held  by  the  Chinese  on  God  and 
that  of  their  mythology  are  lost  from  history's  page,  but 
those  ideas  are  a  valuable  witness  to  the  fact  that  in  the 
earliest  times  mankind  were  monotheists.     Dwelling  far 

-^o  the  East,  the  Chinese  received  contributions  of  Western 
knowledge  at  a  late  date,  and  old  modes  of  religious 
thought  were  among  them  retained  for  a  long  time  in 
their  primitive  state. 

In  treating  this  subject  it  will  be  proper  to  commence 
with  stating  what  the  oldest  Chinese  books  say  of  God. 
In  the  worship  of  the  second  monarch  mentioned  in  the 
Book  of  History,  the  emperor  Shun,  B.  C.  2300,  it  is  said 
that  he  offered  the  sacrifice  Lui  or  lut,  '  round/  that  is, 
the  round  sacrifice,  to  Shangti,  the  Suprem.e  Ruler.  The 
word  round  refers  to  the  sacrifice  on  the  round  open 
altar  erected  for  this  worship,  on  which  the  sacrifices 
spread  out  would  be  arranged  in  a  circle,  in  accordance 
with  the  shape  of  heaven.  He  then  offered  the  spread- 
out  sacrifice  to  the  six  divinities  of  the  second  class. 
The  term  Shangti  may,  from  theological  resemblance, 
be  identified  with  the  Ahuramazda  of  the  Persians  ;  and 
the  divinities  of  the  second  class  in  the  Chinese  account 
will  then  be  the  spirits  who  preside  over  water,  wood, 
fire,  metal,  earth,  and  the  animal  creation  in  the  Persian 


PRIMAEVAL  MONOTHEISM  IN  CHINA  AND  PERSIA    23 

religion.  They  have  no  names  in  the  Chinese  classics. 
They  are  an  incipient  or  germinant  polytheism.  They 
became  the  Amesha  Spentas  of  the  Zendavesta.  Dar- 
mesteter  says  they  were  at  first  personifications  of 
virtues  and  moral  or  liturgical  powers,  but,  not  resting 
here,  they  severally,  in  imitation  of  the  activity  of 
Ahuramazda,  took  a  portion  of  the  world  under  their 
care.  The  third  sacrifice  was  that  which  respects  the 
four  quarters  of  space  and  the  natural  objects  lying  there, 
that  is,  the  hills  and  rivers.  This  sacrifice  was  called 
Wang,  or  the  'looking  sacrifice.'  The  mountains 
selected  were  four,  and  the  reason  of  their  choice  would 
be  adaptation,  on  account  of  local  legends  attaching  to 
these  mountains,  convenience  of  access,  conspicuous 
height,  and  ancient  custom.  The  fourth  and  last  sacrifice 
was  the  '  universal  offering '  presented  to  all  spiritual 
beings  who  have  charge  of  anything  in  Nature. 

In  these  sacrifices  some  were  burnt,  and  others  offered 
whole,  as  for  a  banquet.  Fruits,  vegetables^  and  various 
sorts  of  grain  were  also  offered. 

That  Persian  ideas  of  religion  were  introduced  to 
China  as  early  as  the  third  millennium  before  Christ, 
appears  from  the  following  considerations  : 

(i)  The  Chinese  Book  of  Divinations  contains  in  its 
earliest  parts  a  dual  philosophy,  that  of  light  and 
darkness.  The  whole  Persian  system  of  religion  was 
also  built  on  a  dual  philosophy  of  light  and  darkness. 

(2)  The  ancient  Persians  offered  sacrifices  on  high 
mountains,  and  so  did  the  Chinese. 

(3)  The  Persians  and  the  Chinese  instead  of  four  ele- 
mental powers  in  Nature,  such  as  the  Indians  and  Greeks 
had  in  their  philosophy,  preferred  five,  and  they  were 


24  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

the  same  in  the  Zendavesta  as  in  the  Book  of  History, 
page  ^6^  of  the  Chinese,  viz.  metal,  trees,water,  fire  and  earth. 
These  elements  were  powers  moving  through  Nature,  and 
having  special  control  over  the  substances  named.  This 
was  the  case  among  the  Chinese  and  among  the  Persians. 
(4)  In  the  seventh  century  before  Christ  human 
sacrifices  were  offered  in  accordance  with  Persian  rites 
in  Honan,  occupying  the  central  portion  of  North 
China.  This  was  consented  to  by  Chinese  princes  to 
conciliate  barbarian  tribes,  who  were  then  residing  in 
North-east  China  and  who  followed  the  Persian  religion. 
•^  (5)  The  worship  of  Hormosda,  that  is,  Ahuramazda  or 
Ormuzd,  has  continued  till  the  present  day  in  Mongolia 
and  Manchuria,  as  that  of  a  deity  worshipped  in 
co-existence  with  the  worship  of  fire  and  with  Buddhism. 

(6)  The  future  state  was  an  article  of  the  creed  of  the 
Chinese  in  the  Han  dynasty  before  Buddhism  entered  the 
country  and  was  connected  with  the  worship  of  the  gods 
of  high  mountains. 

(7)  The  future  state  was  also  an  article  of  belief  in 
Japan  and  Mongolia  at  the  same  time. 

(8)  Many  centuries  later,  after  the  completion  of  the 
canon  of  Zoroaster's  religion  under  Shapur  H,  there  was 
an  active  propaganda  of  the  Zoroastrian  religion  in 
China.  The  Chinese  then  gave  it  the  name  of  the 
religion  of  the  god  of  fire.  According  to  the  Chinese 
historians  of  the  time,  this  Persian  religion  also  prevailed 
extensively  in  the  kingdoms  of  which  Bokhara  and 
Samarcand  were  centres  of  instruction.  After  the 
Arabian  conquest  of  Persia  in  the  seventh  century  great 
changes  took  place,  but  the  Persian  missions  in  China 
did  not  cease  on  that  account. 


PRIMAEVAL  MONOTHEISM  IN  CHINA  AND  PERSIA  25 

Since  the  Chinese  mention  Zoroaster  as  the  chief 
religious  teacher  of  the  religion  of  the  god  of  fire,  we 
must  regard  him  as  a  real  character,  and  not  a  myth. 
He  was  not  a  divinity,  but  a  sage.  Nor  can  his  period 
be  farther  back  than  late  in  the  second  millennium  before 
Christ.  His  moral  convictions  were  strong,  and  here 
his  chief  power  lay.  His  influence  was  not  felt  in  China 
till  after  the  Christian  era,  an'd  never  in  Japan.  It  was 
paramount  in  Persia  and  on  the  east  of  the  Caspian  till 
the  Arabian  conquest,  that  is,  through  about  eighteen 
centuries.  One  of  the  things  Zoroaster  did  was  to  change 
cremation  of  the  dead  to  exposure  to  vultures.  This  he 
did  because  he  was  a  devoted  believer  in  the  Babylonian 
physical  doctrines.  He  encouraged  the  worship  of  the 
stars,  and  here  he  shows  again  how  he  was  swayed  by 
Babylonian  science.  He  also  represented  Ahriman  as 
the  prince  of  darkness.  He  took  a  view  of  the  universe 
like  that  of  the  Sabeans,  but  never  deserted  the  mono- 
theistic doctrine.  The  spirits  of  the  stars  and  of  the  sun 
were  angels,  not  gods,  to  his  consciousness,  and  that  of 
the  Persians  who  admired  his  teaching.  Darmesteter 
makes  these  points  clear  in  the  Introduction  and  Notes 
to  the  Zendavesta,  but  fails  to  see  that  Zoroaster  was 
not  a  divinity,  but  a  national  sage.  Before  Zoroaster 
taught  in  Merv  and  Balkh,  cremation  was  extensively 
practised,  human  sacrifices  were  not  uncommon,  mono- 
theism was  the  common  faith  in  Persia,  and  Ormuzd 
existed  without  Ahriman. 

After  Zoroaster's  age,  at  a  time  somewhere  near 
seven  hundred  years  before  Christ,  the  worship  of 
Mithras  spread  to  Japan,  and  that  of  the  sacred  fire 
guarded    by   the    vestal    virgins  to    Rome.      The   old 


26  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

Persian  doctrines  spread  farther  than  did  the  teaching 
of  Zoroaster  himself.  Few  indeed  of  his  many  prohibi- 
tions were  heeded,  except  by  his  countrymen  who 
admired  him.  It  was  only  very  gradually  after  his  time 
that  the  Persians  ceased  to  bury  their  dead  in  the  old 
way.  At  the  same  time  the  Nestorian  Christians  and 
the  Manichaeans  carried  on  missions  in  China,  and  all 
three  were  encouraged  by  the  emperors  of  the  Tang 
dynasty.  Each  had  a  monastery  in  the  capital  as  head- 
quarters, and  branch  houses  in  other  cities. 

After  the  Aryan  conquest  of  North  India,  the  ancient 
Persians  consolidated  an  empire,  the  tradition  of  which  is 
preserved  in  the  Jemshed  legends.  Jemshed's  wide 
empire  forms  the  geographical  framework  of  the  Zend- 
avesta,  and  its  establishment  would  lead  to  communica- 
tion in  the  way  of  trade  between  Persia  and  China.  The 
conditions  seem  to  require  that  this  empire  should  have 
been  strongly  established  in  the  second  millennium  before 
Christ.  The  age  of  Zoroaster  would  be  some  centuries 
later,  when  Vishtasp,  King  of  Bactria,  was  reigning.  The 
seat  of  Jemshed's  empire  would  be  probably  on  the 
Oxus,  while  the  scene  of  Zoroaster's  activity  would  be 
there  also,  since  Balkh  and  Merv  are  specially  men- 
tioned. Such  geographical  circumstances  would  favour 
the  introduction  of  the  dualistic  philosophy  into  China 
at  an  early  date.  The  Persian  philosophy  was  in  China 
probably  B.C.  2800,  and  the  system  of  sacrifices  to  the 
powers  of  Nature  would  follow  it,  and  was  certainly 
included  in  the  religion  of  China  about  B.  C.  2200.  This 
was  long  before  the  new  views  of  the  Parsees  originated, 
and  the  Persian  names  of  mythological  personages  now 
found  in   the   Zendavesta   do   not   appear    in  Chinese. 


PRIMAEVAL  MONOTHEISM  IN  CHINA  AND  PERSIA    2 7 

They  were,  we  may  conclude,  not  then  invented.  Philo- 
sophy, as  so  often  happens,  precedes  mythology.  Fact 
precedes  fiction.  The  reflecting  sage  lays  down  a  logical 
framework  of  thought.  Afterwards  the  myth-maker 
erects  his  hierarchy  of  gods  on  this  as  a  basis. 

The  Chinese  ancestral  worship  appears  at  first  view 
to  be  a  national  creation.  The  other  Asiatic  countries 
do  not  seem  to  have  practised  it  to  anything  like  the 
same  extent  as  the  Chinese.  In  the  sacrifices  ancestors 
of  the  emperor  sit  at  the  banquet  with  the  Supreme 
Ruler.  Tablets  were  inscribed  with  their  names  and  set 
upright  on  the  altar  of  sacrifice.  Particular  attention 
was  paid  to  orientation  in  the  arrangement  of  the  tablets. 
Ancestors  were  worshipped  not  only  at  the  banquet  to 
the  Heavenly  Ruler  but  in  a  special  temple.  In  the 
arrangement  of  the  worship  in  this  temple  the  first  place 
was  given  to  the  founder  of  the  family.  The  others 
were  on  the  right  and  left;  that  is,  they  faced  the 
east  and  west,  while  the  founder's  tablet  faced  south. 
The  special  religious  creativeness  of  the  Chinese  is  seen 
in  their  ancestral  worship.  Their  monotheism,  accom- 
panied by  a  system  of  subordinate  divinities  without 
names,  they  share  with  the  Persians,  as  they  do  the 
worship  of  the  powers  of  Nature  on  mountains.  In 
this  part  of  old  Chinese  worship  the  Persian  creativeness^ 
was  probably  greater  than  that  of  China.  Ancestral 
worship  was  the  first  addition  made  by  China  to  the 
primaeval  religion,  if  it  was  not  brought  with  them  on 
their  first  arrival.  Yet,  on  the  whole,  characteristic  as  it 
is  of  China,  ancestral  worship  is  so  widely  spread  in 
various  nations  that  it  must  be  regarded  as  one  of  the 
very  oldest  forms  of  religion  the  world  possesses.     In 


28  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

Chinese  historical  tradition  there  was,  B.C.  2200,  a  temple 
for  this  worship,  that  of  the  emperor  Yau.  The  pro- 
bability is  then  that  this  people,  when  they  reached 
China,  already  practised  it.  It  would  in  this  case  be 
a  practice  introduced  in  primitive  times.  Originating 
'In  funeral  ceremonies,  it  would  be  an  expression  of 
a  natural  grief  for  the  departed,  and  a  desire  to  maintain 
filial  piety  after  death  had  removed  the  honoured  and  the 
dear.  The  revelation  of  the  future  state  early  made  would, 
in  the  absence  of  the  inspired  patriarchs  to  warn  against 
it,  powerfully  tend  to  encourage  the  worship  of  the  dead. 

The  human  race  was  destined  to  spread  over  the 
world.  Revelation  was  limited  in  area.  Emigrants, 
when  they  passed  beyond  the  reach  of  inspired  patri- 
archs, would  easily  forget  a  part  and  alter  another  part 
of  the  truths  taught  them  in  the  first  ages.  Ancestral 
worship  is  then  probably  older  than  sun-worship  and 
Sabeanism.  Much  more  is  it  older  than  the  worship 
of  such  divinities  as  Bel,  Nebo,  Osiris,  Zeus,  and  Mars. 

We  have  data  here  which  will  help  us  in  determining 
the  position  of  the  Persian  race  in  the  period  between 
B.C.  3000  and  B.C.  2300.  The  Persians  and  Hindus 
would  at  that  time,  having  left  their  European  home, 
probably  be  in  what  is  now  Russian  Turkestan.  This 
was  before  the  age  of  Zoroaster  and  the  mythic  creations 
of  the  Zendavesta.  They  were  in  a  favourable  position 
for  communicating  Western  ideas  to  China.  The  resem- 
blance of  the  Vedic  mythology  to  that  of  the  Persians 
compels  us  to  believe  that  the  Hindus  and  Persians  had 
at  one  time  the  same  religion.  Let  us  accept  the  Chinese 
account  of  the  origin  of  the  dual  philosophy,  viz.  that  it 
was  first  taught  them  about  B.C.  2800  by  Fu  hi,  an 


PRIMAEVAL  MONOTHEISM  IN  CHINA  AND  PERSIA    29 

ancient  emperor  of  the  Chinese  race,  and  also  bear  in  mind 
that  it  was,  as  it  was  then  taught,  philosophy  without 
mythology;  then  we  may  conclude  that  the  Persian  and 
Hindu  mythology,  as  found  in  the  Vedas  and  Zend- 
avesta,  was  elaborated  not  earlier  than  the  second 
millennium  before  Christ.  Mythology  is  a  morbid  growth 
from  philosophy,  and  polytheism  is  a  mistaken  under- 
standing of  natural  phenomena.  The  primaeval  mono- 
theism is  the  original  source  from  which  polytheism  was, 
on  account  of  the  localizing  and  individualizing  habit 
into  which  man  is  prone  to  fall,  gradually  excogitated. 

This  was  what  took  place  in  primaeval  Persia,  in  which 
was  embraced  what  is  now  Turkestan,  east  of  the  Cas- 
pian. Jemshed  himself  became  the  Hindu  god  Yama. 
Mithras  is,  I  believe,  the  Hebrew  and  Semitic  word  for 
the  sun,  Shemesh.  The  worship  of  Mithras  and  Vesta  in 
Rome  were  really  both  of  Persian  origin.  In  Japan 
Amaterasu  is  the  sun  goddess,  and  this  name  is  in  fact, 
as  I  suppose,  Mithras  written  in  Japanese,  though  the 
Japanese  themselves  are  not  aware  of  this  etymology, 
and  believe  that  this  name  is  explained  satisfactorily  as 
formed  from  ania^  'heaven,'  and  terasu,  'to  shine.' 
Mithras  is  also  found  in  China  as  a  name  for  Sunday  in 
almanacs.  The  single  character  mit  is  used,  and  the 
practice  of  introducing  the  word  mit,  '  secret,'  before  each 
Sunday  commenced  probably  in  the  Tang  dynasty, 
A.D.  900,  when  Persian  astronomers  were  in  office  at  the 
Chinese  court,  and  made  what  is  called  in  Chinese  the 
Hwei  hwei  li,  or  Mohammedan  calendar  for  Chinese 
imperial  use.  Few  Chinese  are  aware  that  this  word  mit 
is  Mithras,  yet  there  is  no  doubt  of  the  fact. 

The  ideas  of  the  Persians  would  spread  because  of  the 


30  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

activity  of  the  magi,  whose  pretensions  to  magic  and 
actual  skill  in  Babylonian  science  ensured  them  a  welcome 
in  new  regions,  and  enabled  them  to  travel  everywhere 
with  ease.  Hence  Mithras  was  worshipped  in  Rome,  in 
India,  and  in  distant  Japan,  and  the  ancient  Germans 
took  over,  in  the  days  of  the  week,  not  only  the  sun  as 
a  god  to  be  adored,  but  the  moon  and  the  five  elemental 
powers.  The  gods  recognized  in  our  days  of  the  week 
are  in  fact  the  five  elements,  five  colours,  five  planets,  or 
five  national  deities  which,  when  Chaldean  science  was 
allied  to  German  legend,  were  chosen  to  be  embraced  in 
the  cycle  of  the  seven  names  of  days  which  we  still  use 
in  our  modern  life,  Monday^  Tuesday,  and  the  others. 
Science  comes  before  mythology,  and  is  so  mixed  with 
it,  that  the  permanence  and  spread  of  the  mythological 
conception  is  proportionately  increased. 

The  religious  spirit  of  the  Persians  was  opposed  to 
polytheism,  because  they  were  believers  in  direct  revela- 
tion from  Ormuzd  to  Zoroaster,  their  revered  sage.  In 
proportion  as  they  regarded  Ormuzd  as  real,  personal, 
almighty,  and  all  merciful,  they  were  unwilling  to  become 
polytheists.  The  resemblance  between  the  idea  of 
revelation  in  the  Bible,  in  the  Zendavesta,  and  in  the 
She  king  of  China,  is  most  striking.  In  all  these  three 
books  God  speaks  in  words  to  the  chosen  prophet  of 
a  nation.  There  is  also  no  slight  resemblance  in  the  laws 
of  fasting  and  purification.  The  religious  idea  is,  so  far 
as  faith  in  monotheism  and  in  the  character  of  the 
religious  observances  are  concerned,  strikingly  similar. 
The  precedence  of  monotheism  and  the  later  intro- 
duction of  ancestral  worship  seem  to  be  fair  deductions 
from  the  facts.     It  is  a  noteworthy  circumstance  that  no 


I 


PRIMAEVAL  MONOTHEISM  IN  CHINA  AND  PERSIA    3 1 

Ahriman  was  known  in  the  early  Chinese  religion.  The 
prince  of  darkness  first  appears  as  the  Buddhist  Mara  or 
Mo-kwei,  imported  from  India  in  later  times.  Satan,  as 
a  name,  is  not  mentioned  in  the  Pentateuch,  and  the  Jews 
were  not  perhaps  familiar  with  this  name  till  they  pos- 
sessed it  in  the  Books  of  Samuel  and  Job.<2)  These  facts,  if 
placed  together,  tend  to  show  that  the  addition  of  Ahriman 
to  the  Persian  creed  was  late, comparatively.  The  dual  phi- 
losophy led  gradually  to  the  adoption  of  the  name  Ahriman 
as  a  creator  of  the  evil  and  darkness  of  the  universe. 

The  age  of  Zoroaster  and  the  Zendavesta  was  long 
subsequent  to  the  propagation  of  the  dual  philosophy  in 
Persia.  That  philosophy  was  based  on  physical  facts 
and  observations  made  on  Nature,  and  it  slid  gradually 
into  a  modified  polytheism  or  star-worship,  such  as  we 
find  both  in  Persia  and  China. 

Here  may  very  suitably  be  added  a  few  words  on  the 
belief  in  immediate  revelation  made  by  God  to  eminent 
persons.  Modern  Chinese  commentators  do  not  allow 
this,  but  the  poets  of  the  Book  of  Odes  beyond  doubt 
represent  verbal  revelation  as  being  made  by  God  to 
Wen  wang :  '  Be  not  like  those  who  reject  this  and  cling 
to  that.  Be  not  like  those  who  are  ruled  by  their  fancies 
and  desires ;  I  notice  favourably  your  intelligent  virtue. 
You  act  in  accord  with  God's  law.  Take  measures 
against  the  land  of  your  enemy,  and  with  your  brothers 
prepare  scaling-ladders  to  attack  the  walls  of  Tsung^.' 

These  expressions  may  be  compared  with  some  dreams 
of  the  sovereign  of  the  Tsin  kingdom,  which  are  found  in 
the  Shi'  chi  and  also  in  the  Feng  su  Tung  of  Ying  shau. 
Mu  kung  was  in  a  trance  for  seven  days.    He  then  woke 

^  Chinese  Classics,  by  Legge,  vol.  iv.  pp.  452,  454. 


32  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

and  said  to  Kung  sun  Ch'f  and  TsY  yii,  '  God  is  very 
pleased  with  me.  The  reason  why  I  slept  so  long  is  that 
I  might  be  instructed.  God  told  me  respecting  the 
Tsin  kingdom  (Shansi)  that  it  will  be  in  a  state  of 
anarchy  for  five  generations.  After  this  the  sovereign 
will  become  chief  in  power  of  all  the  states,  and  will  die 
V  before  he  is  an  old  man.  His  son  will  cause  in  his  king- 
dom confusion  in  the  social  relation  of  the  sexes.'  Kung 
sun  Chi'  wrote  this  prediction  down  and  kept  it.  It  was 
supposed  to  be  fulfilled,  and  such  predictions  became 
current  in  that  age,  and  it  was  believed  that  the  souls  of 
eminent  persons  might  wander  in  the  regions  of  the 
higher  heaven  among  divine  beings.  It  was  in  North- 
western China,  about  B.C.  600,  that  predictions  regarding 
kings  and  monarchs  are  said  to  have  been  especially 
uttered.  The  word  ti  in  these  accounts  is  used  mono- 
theistically  in  each  instance,  as  it  is  also  always  in  the 
passages  in  the  Book  of  Odes^  where  God  is  said  to  have 
made  revelations  in  express  words  to  Wen  wang. 

In  the  history  of  primitive  monotheism  and  of  early 
revelation,  it  is  most  important  to  take  note  of  these 
things.  They  show  how,  beyond  the  Semitic  area,  the 
same  class  of  religious  ideas  is  found  as  within  that  area. 
In  Asia  in  early  times,  before  the  introduction  of  image- 
worship  and  polytheistic  teaching,  this  sort  of  faith  in  one 
personal  God,  who  reveals  Himself  to  man  with  or  with- 
out dreams,  was  far  more  widely  spread  than  afterwards. 
The  sense  of  right  and  wrong  is  intuitive  in  the 
monotheistic  nations.  Monotheism  favours  the  recog- 
nition of  intuitional  morality.  If  any  race  is  monotheistic, 
that  race  will  maintain  a  comparatively  high  standard  of 
duty.     Persia  could  not  be  satisfied  without  a  judgment 


I 


PRIMAEVAL  MONOTHEISM  IN  CHINA  AND  PERSIA    33 


to  come.  Believing  in  Ormuzd,  the  doctrine  of  Ahriman 
though  dualistic,  never  led  to  the  denial  of  the  supre- 
macy of  Ormuzd.  "^ 

The  earliest  records  then  unite  in  giving  us  the  evidence 
that  in  Persia  and  China,  as  well  as  among  the  Hebrews, 
there  was  faith  in  one  God  revealing  Himself  to  man  by- 
personal  revelations. 

The  belief  in  direct  revelations  made  to  man  by  divine 
persons  has  survived  in  China  to  the  present  day^/ For 
many  centuries,  probably  as  far  back  as  to  the  fourth 
century,  it  has  been  the  fashion  to  attribute  all  new 
Tauist  books  to  revelation.  Lautsi  or  Kwan  yin,  or 
some  famous  Tauist,  is  supposed  to  reveal  them. 
A  house  is  selected.  Two  men  of  Tauist  repute  under- 
take the  arrangements.  A  table  is  sanded.  Above  it 
hangs  a  large  writing  pencil.  Prayers  are  recited,  and 
soon  the  Divine  Being  descends  on  a  phoenix.  The 
pencil  moves.  It  is  suspended  by  a  string  to  a  beam,  and 
is  partly  held  over  the  sand  by  the  operator.  As  the 
pencil  moves,  characters  are  found  to  be  written  on  the 
sanded  table.  They  are  deciphered  by  the  operator,  and 
constitute  an  oracle.  Tauist  books  are  originated  in  this 
way.  The  operator  is  himself  the  writer.  He  holds  the 
pencil,  and  in  fact  writes  the  characters ;  but  the  belief 
is  that  the  god  himself  writes  them  through  the  operator, 
who  is  possessed  by  the  god. 

This  is,  in  fact,  a  sort  of  modern  magianism.  It  re- 
sembles the  heathen  oracles  of  Greece,  and  it  is  accounted 
for  by  the  spread  of  that  class  of  ideas  among  the  Chinese 
which  are  in  part  Hindu,  in  part  Persian,  and  in  part  the 
result  of  Shamanism.  It  is  what  early  revelation  in  Asia 
has  come  to  be  in  modern  times  under  modern  conditions 

of  society. 

C 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  PHILOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  THE  NAMES  FOR  GOD 

In  Cheyne's  remarks  on  Persian  monotheism,  in  his 
Bampton  Lectures  on  the  Psalter,  p.  282,  he  speaks  of 
the  Persian  idea  of  God  as  most  spiritual  and  mono- 
theistic in  the  Gathas.  Dualism  appears  in  the  Vendidad, 
and  polytheism  in  the  rest  of  the  Avesta.  Now  Chinese 
facts  show  that  monotheism  certainly  preceded  polytheism. 
The  early  physical  philosophy  of  the  Yi  king  is  destitute 
of  polytheism,  and  this  was  of  Persian  origin.  We  may, 
therefore,  from  the  Chinese  side  decide  in  favour  of  the 
comparative  spirituality  of  the  early  conception  of  Ahura- 
mazda,  as  Cheyne  does,  Spiegel,  who  has  done  so  much 
to  throw  light  on  the  religion  of  the  ancient  Persians, 
believes  that  the  Jewish  conception  of  Jahveh  has  modified 
and  purified  the  Persian  view.  But  in  fact  Ahriman,  being 
later  than  Ormuzd  by  some  centuries,  the  Persians  had 
themselves  a  purer  and  more  spiritual  conception  of  God 
in  a  philosophical  age  anterior  to  the  era  of  Zoroaster. 
The  age  of  corruption  would  be  after  the  reign  of  Jem- 
shid,  when  this  monarch  became  Yama,  god  of  the  dead. 
Spiegel  also  contends  that  in  the  principal  points  the 
Iranian  ideas  came  forth  of  themselves  by  natural 
evolution  from  the  ancient  Aryan  ideas.    Granted  that 


PHILOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  NAMES  FOR   GOD       o^^ 

this  was  the  case,  they  did  not  stand  alone.  The  influence 
of  Babylonian  civilization  was  still  paramount.  That 
civilization  embraced  advance  in  science,  in  philosophy, 
and  in  religious  ideas.  It  was  from  this  great  centre  of 
influence  that  the  Aryans  derived  the  more  pure  and 
correct  of  their  ideas.  Among  all  the  more  enlightened 
Aryan  nations,  there  existed  comparatively  pure  and 
elevated  thoughts  of  God,  struggling  to  maintain  a  footing 
amidst  the  growing  polytheism.  Just  at  this  point  the 
Chinese  witnesses  appear.  We  learn  from  them  that  it 
is  needless  to  suppose  that  the  early  monotheism  of  the 
world  had  any  other  origin  than  in  the  early  revelations 
communicated  by  inspired  men.  We  are  not  at  liberty 
to  derive  it  from  polytheism,  because  the  Chinese,  Persian, 
Semitic,  and  Aryan  evidence  are  against  this  mode  of 
accounting  for  monotheistic  belief. 

Thus  in  the  Pentateuch,  in  harmony  with  this  view,  the 
teaching  of  the  names  of  God  is  given  before  the  con- 
solidation of  the  national  life  of  the  Israelites.  To  trace 
the  religion  of  the  Israelites  to  polytheism  is  an  error.  It 
was  originally  monotheistic,  and  the  Pentateuch  ought  to 
retain  undisturbed  its  place  at  the  head  of  the  Hebrew 
sacred  books.  The  antiquity  of  the  Pentateuch  is  vouched 
for  by  its  monotheistic  teaching.  The  facts  of  Chinese 
history  and  religious  development  show  that  Persia  before 
Zoroaster  had  a  long  age  when  a  monotheistic  religion  and 
incipient  dualistic  philosophy  prevailed  in  that  country. 
This  philosophy  was  physical  and  grew  out  of  the  physical 
science  of  Babylon  at  a  time  when  Babylonian  tritheism 
had  not  yet  been  developed.  Philosophical  views  on 
religion  in  Palestine,  of  Babylonian  origin,  prevailed  before 
the  age  of  Moses.   Slow  as  was  the  progress  of  Babylonian 

c  % 


36  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

science,  its  growth  spread  over  an  immensely  long  period. 
For  example,  the  stars  were  named  by  the  Chinese  ^,300 
years  before  Christ,  and  the  stars  correspond  for  the  most 
part  to  those  of  the  nakshatras  of  India  and  Arabia.  The 
Chinese  had  at  that  time  adopted  a  calendar  of  Babylonian 
origin,  based  on  the  nineteen  year  cycle  of  the  moon.  By 
means  of  cuneiform  writing  Babylonian  knowledge  was 
spread  in  Palestine  in  the  days  of  Abraham.  This  enables 
us  to  account  from  the  literary  standpoint  for  the 
remarkably  clear  teaching  of  monotheism  in  the  Penta- 
teuch. We  must  hold  firmly  to  the  Mosaic  origin  of  the 
Pentateuch  as  a  whole,  because  then  it  is  in  its  proper 
chronological  position.  There  were  early  revelations 
made  in  Babylonia  of  a  monotheistic  character.  They 
were  accompanied  by  science  and  philosophy,  and  were 
with  this  aid  able  to  spread  widely.  The  age  of  Moses 
was  the  second  great  age  of  divine  revelation^  and  the 
age  of  the  prophets  was  the  third. 

The  great  importance  of  the  first  age  of  primaeval 
revelation  will  be  plainly  seen,  if  the  growth  of  the 
national  names  for  God  be  made  the  subject  of  careful 
examination.  Through  the  effect  of  early  revelation 
the  conception  of  a  God  is  universal  among  men,  except 
when  by  vice,  isolation,  and  bad  teaching  the  idea 
becomes  obscured.  God  being  universally  known,  He 
can  be  named  differently  by  this  and  that  race,  but  He 
is  the  same  to  all  men.  He  is  one  being.  The  word 
God,  then,  ought  to  be  formed  in  one  language  from  what 
it  is  in  another  by  a  slow  process  of  change.  For 
example  Iddio  in  Italian  grew  slowly  out  of  the  Latin 
Deus.  In  China  ti  means  'ruler,'  'emperor/  as  w^ell  as 
God.     God  is  conceived  by  the  Chinese  as  a  sovereign, 


I 


PHILOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  NAMES  FOR    GOD      37 

But  this  was  not  the  first  thought  they  had  of  God. 
By  the  forefathers  of  the  Teutons  He  was  conceived  of  as 
the  supremely  good  being.  This  etymology  of  our  word 
God  is,  however,  questioned  by  philologists.  Again  Deus 
is  '  the  bright  one '  among  the  Celts,  the  Latins,  Greeks, 
and  Hindus.  But  we  need  not  on  this  account  deny 
the  identity  of  the  word.  Deus  as  '  the  bright  one '  is 
not  among  Aryans  the  only  idea  possible  of  God.  He 
may  be  also,  as  in  Semitic,  '  the  mighty  one.'  We  call 
Him  the  Almighty.  The  French  call  Him  the  Eternal. 
What  I  contend  for  is  that  God  was  one,  and  the  name 
one,  to  a  larger  extent  than  has  been  supposed.  The 
Chinese  word  Ti  may  be  Deus,  0€oy,  Dewa,  Din,  and  also 
Elohim,  In  order  to  render  this  possible  there  must 
have  been  an  ancient  value,  something  like  dtit,  to  form 
a  basis  for  the  names.  The  universality  of  the  idea  of 
God  in  ancient  times  shows  that  the  idea  was  as  common 
as  it  was  ancient,  and  as  ancient  as  it  was  common.  We 
ought  therefore  to  expect  to  find  it  by  gentle  variations 
and  modifications  assuming  a  form  suitable  to  each 
language  in  sound  and  in  sense.  It  does  not  follow  that 
because  God  in  Chinese  is  the  '  sovereign  ruler '  it  may  not 
be  *  the  bright  one'  in  another  language.  Nor  is  it  necessary 
that  because  Z^^^^  is  'the  bright  one'  in  Latin,  and  Ti  in 
Chinese  is  '  the  sovereign  ruler/  that  these  may  not  be  one 
word.  The  Chinese  mind  thought  sovereignty  was  the 
most  important  idea  to  be  remembered  and  inculcated  in 
the  attributes  of  God.  The  Chinese  have  political  ideas 
strongly  developed.  The  social  and  the  moral  is  to  them 
important.  The  idea  of  God  is  therefore  to  them  very 
naturally  the  ruler.  To  the  Aryans  brightness  was  the 
chief  idea,  and  if  Deus,  diu,  0€oy,  deva  be  traced  to  their 


38  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

origin  etymologically,  this  idea  suits.  But  in  Hebrew 
eloat  or  clot  or  edtit^  as  I  believe  it  was  originally 
pronounced,  means  *the  powerful  one/  because  it  was 
a  Semitic  preference  to  regard  the  might  of  God  as  the 
most  conspicuous  divine  attribute.  The  word  may  be 
the  same  in  the  three  systems  of  language.  We  seek  an 
international  etymology,  such  as  shall  embrace  the  three 
ideas  of  brightness,  sovereignty  and  power,  a  word  that 
may  be  suitable  to  express  the  early  conception  of  God 
formed  by  young  humanity  in  prehistoric  times. 

Let  us  imagine  an  age  when  the  Chinese,  the  Semites, 
and  the  Aryans  were  still  one  family.  Some  patriarchal 
figure  before  their  separation  is  instructing  a  group  in 
religion.  Will  brightness  be  the  only  idea  by  which  he 
will  teach  God,  or  sovereignty,  or  power,  or  fatherhood, 
or  goodness?  He  would  point  to  the  sky.  He  would 
appeal  to  the  thunder,  to  the  rain,  and  to  the  roaring 
blast.  He  would  dilate  on  fatherhood,  on  sovereignty, 
on  the  brightness  of  the  dawn  and  of  the  sun.  These 
would  all  form  a  part  of  the  primaeval  rhetoric  ;  but  the 
first  germ  of  the  name  of  God,  as  it  seems  to  me,  would 
be  in  the  direction  pointed  to,  in  the  act  of  pointing,  in 
the  hand  used  in  the  gesture,  and  in  the  demonstrative 
already  in  use.  The  gesture  used  in  pointing  upward 
would  originate  the  root.  To  judge  by  the  form  of 
Elohim,  Dens,  and  Ti^  the  original  word  would  then 
be  something  like  dut.  With  such  a  root  of  demonstra- 
tive origin,  the  teaching  of  the  divine  attributes  would  be 
combined  gradually,  as  instruction  proceeded  from  age  to 
age.  The  imaginative  Indo-Europeans  made  much  of' 
the  dawn  and  of  the  sun.  But  the  real  origin  of  the 
word  would  be  earlier.    The  Indo-Europeans  are  a  mixed 


PHILOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  NAMES  FOR   GOD      39 

race.  The  short  and  broad-headed  portion  are  probably 
the  older,  and  the  long-headed  the  more  recent,  because 
the  eastern  Asiatic  races  are  predominantly  short  and 
broad-headed.  Hence  we  must  expect  to  meet  with 
Aryan  words,  and  in  fact  nearly  the  whole  Indo- 
European  vocabulary  is  found  in  the  eastern  Asiatic 
vocabulary. 

Certainly  the  demonstrative  or  pronominal  origin  of 
this  very  widely-used  name  for  God  is  in  accord  with  the 
subjective  character  of  the  idea  of  God.  It  is  more 
subjective  than  objective,  and  therefore  the  name  would 
not  unnaturally  be  pronominal.  Then  came  the  other 
names,  Shaddai^  '  the  powerful,'  Jehovah^  '  the  self- 
existing,'  Bhagavan,  Bogd,  *  the  happy,'  Gott^  *  the  good,' 
Elyon^ '  the  most  high,'  Adonai^  '  lord.'  Khoda,  the  Per- 
sian word,  means  *  master.'  These  came  from  reflection, 
and  would  all  be  parallel  with  the  pronominal  word 
which  I  suppose  the  Chinese,  the  Semites,  and  the  Aryans 
have  all  agreed  to  use.  The  Teutons  let  it  go,  and  kept 
the  term  God.  So  too  a  special  word  was  kept  by  the 
Persians  and  by  the  Slavs.  In  Persia,  however,  before 
Khoda  came  into  use,  Ormuzd  was  the  favourite  term, 
and  this  word  is  compounded  in  part  of  Asura^  which  is 
derived  from  astis,  '  master,'  the  Hera  of  the  goddess 
Juno,  and  the  German  Herr,  The  other  part  of  Ormuzd 
is  mazdao^  *  great  knowledge.'  Thus  Khoda  comes  into 
Persian  as  a  substitute  for  the  '  greatly  wise  lord.' 
Among  Teutons  and  Slavs,  the  names  God  and  Bogd 
became  strong  enough  by  national  preference  to  push 
out  the  older  word  and  secure  adoption  in  its  stead. 
The  subjective  word  of  pronominal  origin  took  the 
earliest  place,   as  being  the  outflow  of  the  subjective 


40  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

religious  consciousness  of  humanity.  It  needed  to  be 
originated  in  this  way.  Poetical  imagination  could  not, 
without  this  subjective  basis,  succeed  in  expressing  suit- 
ably so  grand  and  universally  impressive  an  idea  as  that 
of  God. 

A  most  important  point  in  the  view  here  given  is  the 
identity  of  Allah  with  Deus  through  an  earlier  change 
fronl  Addat.  Every  Semitic  n  He  is  in  fact  d^  /,  or  s. 
By  physiological  change  /  proceeds  from  d,  when  the 
sides  of  the  tongue  are  dropped  in  pronouncing  d^. 

Neither  /nor  r  can  be  primaeval  letters.  When  inves- 
tigating the  name  of  God  in  primaeval  speech,  we  must 
change  all  new  letters,  such  as  /  and>,  to  those  from 
which  they  have  been  evolved. 

The  patriarchal  teacher  of  primaeval  ages  would,  ac- 
cording to  this  derivation  of  the  name  for  God  used  by 
the  Chinese  and  other  ancient  nations,  employ  the  demon- 
strative, seconding  it  by  pointing  to  heaven  with  the 
hand,  and  by  descriptions  of  God's  power  and  glory,  and 
he  would  so  convey  a  conception  of  God  to  the  minds  of 
his  auditors  that  the  pronoun  would  become  the  name. 
This  origin  for  words  would  always  succeed  when  the 
subjective  impression  of  any  idea  was  more  vigorous 
than  the  objective. 

I  would  ask  of  investigators  to  consider  carefully  this 
mode  of  deriving  that  one  name  for  God  which  is  used 
by  a  large  majority  of  the  whole  human  race,  and  which 
helps  to  substantiate  the  fact  that  the  common  con- 
sciousness of  mankind  speaks  to  every  one  instinctively 
of  the  existence  of  God.  Brightness  alone  has  not  in  it 
sufficient  basis  for  the  great  and  awful  name  of  Deity. 

_  ^  SiVftti^s  Handbook  of  Phonetics  may  be  consulted. 


PHILOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  NAMES  FOR    GOD      41 

The  idea  of  brightness  is  but  an  added  feature  in  the 
description  of  the  Divine  being.  It  would  not  be  by 
this  attribute  that  God  would  first  become  known  to 
mankind.  We  must  go  back  to  the  mother  speech, 
from  which  Chinese,  Tartar,  Semite,  and  Aryan  were  all 
developed.  There  we  ought  to  find  the  great  idea  of 
God  already  conceived  in  language. 

The  mythologies  are  various.  The  idea  of  God  is  one. 
When  mythology  was  made  the  race  imagination  of  each 
language  was  active.  The  creative  activity  of  races  is 
seen  in  the  grammatical  forms  preferred  by  each,  and 
here  the  demonstratives  are  widely  used,  and  other 
forms  are  built  on  them  as  a  basis.  /  Then  comes  mytho- 
logical creativeness,  with  political^  social,  commercial, 
and  legal  creativeness. 

It  is  possible  to  define  and  trace  many  of  the  ideas 
embraced  in  civilized  vocabularies,  and  they  may  be 
reduced  to  form  as  branches  from  a  root.  Words  were 
adopted  as  the  mind  of  man  grew.  Knowledge  called 
for  new  words.  They  were  not  therefore  all  contem- 
porary. In  most  cases  the  formation  of  words  was 
gradual.  What  are  called  roots  in  Indo-European 
languages  are  in  fact  words  belonging  to  the  vocabulary 
of  the  races  by  the  union  of  which  the  Indo-European 
grammar  and  vocabulary  were  formed.  No  other  theory 
will  stand,  for  the  Indo-European  languages  are  built  up 
on  previously  existing  systems  of  language. 

Some  men  of  the  first  race  from  which  other  races 
sprang  would  be  distinguished  for  their  moral  and 
spiritual  excellence.  Their  influence  would  be  great 
because  of  the  divine  aid  they  received  and  the  purity 
of  their  lives.     Such  was  Enoch,  in  an  age  when  evil 


42  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

began  to  reign  among  men.  The  origination  and  pre- 
servation of  the  name  for  God,  first  used,  would  be  in  the 
hands  of  such  men,  because  they  would  be  the  teachers 
of  religion.  The  idea  of  the  family  would  through  their 
influence  become  extended  and  be  transformed  into  that 
of  the  nation.  The  extension  of  religion  would  be  in  the 
hands  of  these  men,  and  the  religious  terms  they  used 
would  be  adopted  by  their  audiences. 

Note. — In  Hebrew  words,  and  in  Semitic  words  generally,  h 
stands  for  /  or  s.  The  letter  n  He  corresponds  to  the  Greek 
aspirate,  which  also  represents  j,  as  in  77X10?,  sol,  the  sun.  In  San- 
scrit and  Zend  the  same  thing  happens.  The  Indian  Soma  is  the 
Zend  Haoma,  for  example.  In  Hebrew  the  connexion  of  He 
with  Helh  is  very  rare  and  exceptional.  Hence  ^^\p^^  eloht'm 
is  really  edotivi,  if  we  restore  the  old  sounds.  Behemoth  in 
Job  is  betemoth,  the  Latin  bestia  with  a  third  radical  vi  added. 
Bohu  is  the  Greek  abyss,  because  h  in  both  languages  repre- 
sents s.  Probably  there  are  a  hundred  important  words  which 
by  the  application  of  this  simple  rule  can  be  at  once  added  to 
the  list  of  those  Semitic  nouns  and  verbs  which  are  the  same 
with  Indo-European  words  resembling  them  in  sense  and 
sound. 


CHAPTER   IV 

HOW  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS   SPREAD   IN  THE  ANCIENT 
WORLD 

When  the  intercourse  of  nations  is  perfected,  as  in  the 
modern  age^  by  quick  travelling,  all  great  ideas  spread 
rapidly.  In  the  old  times,  religious  and  other  thoughts 
spread  very  slowly,  because  of  the  lack  of  education  and 
the  inadequacy  of  the  means  of  conveyance.  In  the 
times  not  long  before  Abraham,  the  transplanting  of 
important  thoughts,  religious  and  moral,  had  already 
become  facilitated  by  the  spread  of  civilization.  Baby- 
lonia was  even  then  a  centre  of  great  thoughts,  a  part  of 
which  Abraham  brought  with  him  to  Palestine.  The 
art  of  writing  had  been  known  for  many  centuries.  The 
habit  grew  up  of  employing  scribes  to  communicate 
thought.  Letters,  edicts,  genealogical  tables,  religious 
hymns,  brief  statements  of  historical  events,  came  into 
use.  Among  them  were  some  documents  of  great  interest 
on  religious  subjects. 

The  Babylonian  account  of  the  creation  spread  to 
Palestine,  as  is  shown,  for  example,  by  the  similarity  of 
the  Phoenician  ideas  of  the  origin  of  the  world  to  those 
of  the  Mesopotamian  plain.  Religious  ideas  spread 
gradually  in  time  and  in  space.     They  grow  by  degrees 


44  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

and  become  modified  by  circumstances.  When  migra- 
tion of  races  is  attended  by  civilizing  agencies,  religious 
ideas  spread  more  rapidly  than  otherwise.  Consequently 
those  ideas  of  this  nature,  which  originated  in  Babylonia, 
have  been  communicated  much  more  widely  than  others. 

The  primaeval  religious  usages,  such  as  sacrifice,  for 
example,  spread  farther  and  more  rapidly  than  the 
modern  criticism  of  some  writers  supposes  was  the  case. 
In  China,  sacrifices  take  the  form  of  burnt  offerings,  and 
of  offerings  of  respect.  In  the  Li  ki,  the  fifth  of  the 
Chinese  classics,  the  burnt  sacrifice  and  the  other  sacri- 
fices are  offered  on  separate  altars.  The  reason  of 
a  burnt  sacrifice  is  not  stated.  The  Chinese  suggest 
that  it  is  in  order  to  convey  the  fragrant  odour  of  the 
burning  victim  up  to  God  in  heaven.  In  the  narrative 
given  in  Genesis,  we  note  that  the  burnt  offering  was 
more  acceptable  than  the  fruits  of  the  earth.  The  con- 
fession of  sin  made  it  so.  Starting  from  the  Scripture 
account,  we  are  to  regard  sacrifices  as  a  divine  institution. 
In  China  the  missionary  is  able  to  state  this  as  an 
explanation  of  the  burnt  sacrifices  which  in  the  Chinese 
classics  are  offered  to  heaven. 

In  proportion  to  the  advance  of  civilization  of  any 
race  would  be  the  extent  and  accuracy  of  religious 
tradition.  The  Chinese  when  they  arrived  in  their 
country  brought  with  them  the  custom  of  offering  burnt 
sacrifices.  Less  civilized  races,  so  far  as  we  know,  had 
not  done  so.  Not  only  did  the  Chinese  sovereign  offer 
burnt  sacrifices  to  heaven  ;  the  common  people  also 
offered  burnt  sacrifices  at  marriages.  This  is  stated  in 
the  classical  work  known  as  the  Yi  li  ^.     The  god  of  the 

^  There  is  a  French  translation  of  this  work  by  Prof.  Harlez. 


SPREAD  OF  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  ANCIENT  WORLD  45 

south-west  corner  was  thus  honoured,  and  the  kitchen 
god  at  the  south-east  corner.  Both  sacrifices  were 
offered  outside  of  the  house.  Nothing  of  this  is  ob- 
served by  the  Chinese  now,  but  it  was  their  practice  in 
the  olden  time.  The  bride  and  bridegroom  knelt 
towards  the  tablets  of  these  two  divinities  as  a  part  of 
the  marriage  ceremony. 

.  This  connexion  of  fire-worship  with  marriage  is  an 
instance  of  Persian  influence.  The  kitchen  god  is  the 
god  of  fire,  for  the  worship  of  the  elements  was  early 
practised  by  the  Persians.  This  custom,  it  is  likely,  was 
not  introduced  into  China  earlier  than  about  1000  B.C. 
It  was  probably  discontinued  as  an  outdoor  sacrifice  as 
far  back  as  the  Christian  era ;  but  the  worship  of  the 
fire  god  has  been  retained  till  the  present  day.  The 
bride  and  bridegroom  kneel  to  the  fire  god  in  the 
kitchen. 

The  Flood  does  not  appear  to  have  been  known  in 
China  in  the  early  ages,  for  what  is  called  the  Chinese 
Flood  is  a  local  catastrophe.  The  name  Nu  wa,  supposed 
to  be  Noah,  is  met  with  not  earlier  than  the  age  of  Con- 
fucius, and  came  in  with  other  traditions.  So  it  was  in 
India.  The  tradition  of  the  Flood  of  Noah  undoubtedly 
went  to  India,  but  it  was  after  the  Vedic  age.  It  went 
to  that  country  with  the  belief  in  a  future  life,  astronomy, 
a  trinity  of  gods,  and  other  dogmas  believed  in  Meso- 
potamia. I  should  say,  therefore,  that  we  cannot  regard 
the  Deluge  traditions,  either  of  India  or  of  China,  as  having 
gone  to  those  countries  before  the  age  of  the  Classics  or 
Vedas.  They  were  introduced  subsequently,  in  the  time 
of  the  Assyrian,  Babylonian,  and  Persian  empires,  which 
favoured  the  spread  of  all  sorts  of.  ideas. 


46  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

Let  the  limited  deluge  of  Sir  William  Dawson  be 
accepted.  Egypt  and  Western  Asia  were  sunk  under 
the  sea,  and  again  rose  from  it  after  a  brief  interval. 
Before  and  after  this  great  catastrophe,  recorded  in  all 
the  literatures  of  that  part  of  the  world  as  an  ancient 
tradition,  there  was  a  distribution  of  races  caused  by 

/emigration.  The  world  was  peopled  twice ;  once  after 
Adam,  and  a  second  time  after  Noah.  Religious  traditions 
were  of  two  kinds  in  China  and  other  countries  beyond 
the  deluged  regions.  The  traditions  of  the  Chinese  classics 
were  to  a  large  extent  antediluvian.  The  traditions  of 
Tauist  and  Buddhist  books  are  post-diluvian.  The  burnt 
sacrifices  of  the  classics,  with  the  beginnings  of  philosophy 
and  of  astronomical  science  in  the  same  ancient  books, 
are  antediluvian.     Polytheism,  astrology  and  the  belief 

V  in  charms  are  post-diluvian. 

The  great  importation  of  polytheistic  belief  and 
superstitious  use  of  charms  and  of  astrological  predictions 
into  China  in  the  first  millennium  before  Christ  shows 
what  religious  thought  had  become  in  Babylon.  There 
was  at  that  time  pictorial  art  to  aid.  Pictures  and  statues 
were  both  employed  to  propagate  the  current  religious 
ideas,  but  not  till  shortly  before  the  Christian  era.  The 
Chinese  learned  to  worship  Venus  under  the  title,  'the 
mother  of  the  western  king.'  Jupiter  was  the  eastern 
king,  and  in  worshipping  him  adoration  was  offered  to 
the  element  of  wood,  reigning  in  the  spring  of  the  year. 
The  imperial  astronomers  took  advantage  of  the  position 
of  the  planet  Jupiter  in  his  orbit  of  twelve  years  to  settle 
the  astrological  destiny  of  each  of  the  Chinese  provinces, 
judged  by  the  stars  under  which  it  lay. 

/^Let  the  difference  between  the  early  and  late  importa- 


SPREAD  OF  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  ANCIENT  WORLD  47 

tion  of  religious  ideas  be  carefully  noted.  The  worship 
of  the  Supreme  Ruler  with  burnt  sacrifices  belongs  to  the 
one.  A  corrupt  polytheism  and  superstition  founded  on 
science  marks  the  other.  The  first  has  in  it  divine 
elements.  The  second  is  purely  human.  The  one  is 
comparatively  pure.  The  other  is  altogether  corrupt. 
It  may  be  concluded  then  that  divine  revelation  was 
still  present  in  the  early  period  in  those  regions  from 
which  the  primitive  Chinese  traditions  came,  while  later 
on  in  time  polytheism  had  been  extremely  active,  and 
an  idolatrous  spirit  was  paramount. 

It  is  noteworthy,  moreover,  that  not  only  in  China  do 
we  find  comparative  purity  of  religious  belief  anterior 
to  the  entrance  of  polytheism  ;  the  same  is  true  of  Indi^^X^ 
In  the  Vedas  there  was  no  caste,  no  image  of  a  divinity, 
no  metempsychosis,  no  flaunting  before  the  public  eye  of 
revolting  ceremonies.  As  years  rolled  on,  the  nature 
divinities  of  the  Vedas  became  trinitarian  gods,  and 
subtle  metaphysics  took  the  place  of  a  much  simpler 
philosophy.  Yama  came  in  to  judge  the  under-world. 
Then  came  throughout  India  a  thorough  change.  Mono- 
theism first  passed  into  a  personification  of  the  powers  of 
Nature,  and  these  became  again  so  modified  that  Brahma, 
Vishna,  and  Siva  came  to  be  recognized  as  the  chief  gods 
in  the  national  pantheon.  In  this  change  there  is  the  intro- 
duction of  the  idea  of  creation  and  its  correlate  destruc- 
tion. In  Indra  comes  forward  the  conception  of  actual 
government  of  the  world.  In  Maha  Ishwara  we  have 
self-existence  and  sovereignty.  The  sun  and  the  moon 
are  both  gods  to  be  worshipped.  Previous  to  Buddhism 
the  Indian  mind  was  greatly  stirred  to  thought  on  divine 
things.     The  thinker,  usually  a  Brahmin  of  that  country, 


48  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

strove  to  make  advance  in  the  conception  of  God.  His 
ancestors  had,  when  they  conquered  India,  so  far  aban- 
doned the  original  monotheism  as  to  personify  Nature, 
and  adopt  the  names  Varuna,  Mitra,  Indra,  and  others. 
The  Greeks  and  Persians  honoured  the  same  gods  \.\\ 
part,  as  the  names  show.  The  Hindus  proceeded  from 
the  Vedic  mythology  to  that  which  we  find  in  the 
Buddhist  books,  swaying  the  popular  mind  of  India  in 
the  age  when  Buddha  taught. 

There  was.  a  time  of  Persian  influence,  when  Yama  was 
appointed  god  of  the  dead.  He  was  a  real  Persian  king 
who  became  a  god  of  the  dead,  because  in  the  absence  of 
divine  revelation  men  would  have  it  so.  What  then 
shall  we  say  of  such  a  word  as  Varuna,  the  Greek  ovpavos, 
and  Urania  ?  It  seems  to  say  the  Indians  came  from 
Europe.  By  the  Persian  Mithras  we  learn  further  that 
the  Aryan  conquerors  of  India  reached  it  by  the  lands 
lying  to  the  east  of  the  Caspian  Sea.  But  behind  all  this 
is  primaeval  monotheism  and  that  actual  Nature  which, 
when  reflected  on  without  revelation's  aid,  became  the 
basis  of  various  forms  of  polytheism.  This  forces  us 
back  to  a  time  earlier  than  the  origin  of  the  Indo-Euro- 
pean language  and  religion,  to  a  still  tnore  ancient 
residence  in  Western  Asia.  The  Indo-European  people 
had  a  purer  form  of  religious  thought  when  in  their 
original  home.  They  became  Greeks  in  Greece,  Lithu- 
anians in  Eastern  Russia  near  the  Baltic,  and  Hindus 
in  India.  The  forces  and  aspects  of  Nature  in  each 
country  suggested  polytheistic  belief  in  a  form  suited 
apparently  to  each  country. 

We  need  to  reduce  the  early  religious  faith  of  all  the 
races  to  a  certain  harmony.     In  doing  this  we  ought  to 


SPREAD  OF  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  ANCIENT  WORLD  49 

insist  on  realism  as  against  myth  at  every  point  all  down 
the  stream  of  time.  Why  should  we  necessarily  have 
mythological  periods  in  history  ?  What  we  need  to  do 
IS  not  to  cease  our  search,  when  we  find  ancient  men  and 
women  described  as  half  human  and  half  animal,  but 
rather  view  them  as  real  men  and  women  covered  up 
from  view  in  a  mythical  cloud.  History,  even  if  for- 
gotten, is  real  from  the  earliest  ages,  and  we  are  apt  to 
forget  this,  and  to  be  content  with  viewing  it  as  mytho- 
logical. Let  us  rather  strip  off  the  shell  that  hides  the 
kernel  from  being  seen.  For  example,  Ishtar  is  really 
Venus,  and  originates  in  the  evening  star.  The  Baby- 
lonian astronomy  is  older  than  the  myth  of  Ishtar  and  of 
Venus.  It  is  true,  while  the  mythology  joined  to  it  is 
false.  Divine  teaching  belongs  to  the  kernel,  and  not  to 
the  shell.  The  words,  *  Let  them  be  for  signs,  and  for 
seasons,  and  for  days,  and  for  years,'  are  a  divine  utter- 
ance, a  record  of  what  was  revealed  in  the  days  of 
the  primaeval  revelation.  It  is  astronomical  teaching, 
it  is  not  mythological.  We  have  to  sweep  away  the 
mythological  element,  and  the  kernel  remains.  That 
kernel  is  worth  seeking.  It  is  something  true,  and  there- 
fore valuable  :  a  resting-place  for  thought.  Ancient  men 
never  saw  the  goddess  Aphrodite,  not  Homer  himself. 
They  only  saw  the  star,  and  they  invented  the  whole 
story  about  the  goddess.  So  with  Mercury,  the  winged 
messenger  of  the  gods,  called  also  Hermes,  the  interpreter 
of  the  gods.  What  is  this  divinity  ?  He  is  Nebo  cer- 
tainly, and  what  is  Nebo  ?  Nebo  is  the  planet  Mercury, 
just  as  Baal  is  the  sun.  The  sun  is  older  than  the  mytho- 
logy that  wrapped  up  the  sun  from  view,  and  the 
mythology  disappears  quickly,  like  the  richly  coloured 

D 


50  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

clouds  of  evening  when  the  night  comes  on.  The  worship 
of  Baal  is  in  the  Old  Testament  the  worship  of  the  sun, 
while  Nebo  is  simply  the  planet  Mercury,  with  additions 
of  a  mythological  kind.  Yet  our  text-books  on  mytho- 
logy shrink  from  stating  its  Babylonian  origin. 

The  account  given  by  Cox  in  his  work  on  Aryan 
mythology  tends  to  convey  the  impression  that  the 
Aryan  race  had  the  field  all  to  themselves,  and  produced 
all  their  gods  by  their  own  inventiveness.  The  fact  is^  that 
the  Aryan  and  Semitic,  as  well  as  the  Egyptian  mytho- 
logy^ are  founded  on  Babylonian  observations  of  the 
heavens.  First  there  was  monotheism  and  moral  law^ 
Then  came  the  worship  of  heaven,  the  sun,  the  moon, 
and  the  planets.  After  this  the  mythologies  sprang  up 
among  the  Accadians  at  Babylon,  the  Assyrians,  the 
Egyptians,  and  the  Greeks.  Image-worship  began  to 
be  practised  at  the  same  time.  Then  it  was  that  the 
nations  of  the  Aryan  race  worked  out  their  mythology 
in  an  age  which  was  partly  before  the  conquest  of  Persia 
and  India  by  the  Aryan  nation,  and  partly  after  that 
eventful  struggle.  The  difference  between  one  god  and 
another  is  very  much  the  difference  between  one  planet 
and  another.  If  we  embrace  m  one  view  the  sun,  moon, 
and  stars,  with  the  wind  and  rain,  the  seasons  and  the 
phenomena  of  earthquakes  and  volcanoes,  we  have  the 
naturalistic  basis  out  of  which  the  mythologies  grew. 

The  myth  arises  after  the  reality  which  it  misrepre- 
sents, and  it  is  remarkable  that  in  the  first  chapters  of 
Genesis,  both  in  the  narratives  of  the  writers  who  used 
Elohim  and  El  and  of  the  writers  who  used  Jehovah, 
there  is  no  polytheistic  element.  The  documents  in 
their  original  form  must  be  extremely  ancient.     They 


SPREAD  OF  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  ANCIENT  WORLD  51 

seem  to  be  older  than  the  tablets  of  the  creation  poem 
translated  by  Fox-Talbot  in  the  Records  of  the  Past, 
There  the  name  Bel  is  used,  indicating  that  these  tablets 
were  recent.  Since  monotheism  preceded  polytheism,  the 
Hebrew  account  is  the  older.  It  was  translated  from  an 
older  cuneiform  account,  which  may  be  unearthed  at  some 
future  time.  This  seems  more  likely  than  that  the  Hebrew 
translators  substituted  Elohim  and  Jehovah  for  Bel. 

The  power  to  spread  far  and  last  for  ages  attaching  to 
Babylonian  knowledge  was  due  to  science.  On  the  east 
the  Persians  gladly  accepted  it,  as  is  quite  plainly  seen 
in  their  adoration  of  the  five  elemental  or  planetary  gods. 
They  and  the  Sabeans  both  adored  the  heavenly  host 
because  Babylon  lay  between  them. 

The  thought  may  occur  that  since  the  Accadians  and 
the  Semites  in  Babylon  had  a  trinitarian  polytheism 
very  early,  and  also  worshipped  personified  planets, 
the  Hebrew  account  of  creation  must  have  been  a 
translation  from  tablets  in  cuneiform  having  Bel  for 
God.  But  it  should  be  considered  that  in  a  country 
a  thousand  miles  or  more  from  Mesopotamia  it  would 
be  very  ancient  accounts  that  would  be  current.  Baby- 
lonian astrology  sprang  up  in  China  many  centuries 
after  it  was  current  at  Babylon.  In  ancient  Asia  many 
ages  passed  before  waves  of  thought,  starting  from  the 
centre  of  civilization,  reached  the  outer  circle  at  which 
they  were  destined  to  arrive.  New  waves  of  thought 
followed  the  old  at  intervals,  but  they  did  not  obliterate 
the  traces  of  those  that  left  the  centre  at  an  earlier 
period.  The  accounts  of  the  creation  with  Elohim  and 
with  Jehovah  Elohim  may  then  very  well  be  older  than 
the  accounts  with  Bel, 

D  1 


^2  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

A  question  of  supreme  importance  now  occurs,  When 
did  the  idea  of  a  Trinity  in  the  divine  nature  first  arise  ? 
There  are  pre-intimations  of  the  Trinity  in  the  Penta- 
teuch. This  book  must  not  be  lightly  ascribed  to  a  post- 
Davidic  age.  And  there  will,  if  we  continue  to  regard 
it  as  belonging  to  the  Mosaic  period,  be  good  reason 
to  make  careful  search  in  it  on  the  subject  of  a  Trinity 
in  the  divine  nature.  The  almost  entire  absence  of 
proper  names  formed  with  the  word  Jehovah  obliges 
us  to  place  the  composition  of  the  Pentateuch  in  the 
centuries  preceding  the  age  of  Samuel.  Joshua  and 
Jochebed  are  the  only  two  names  of  persons  so  formed. 
The  practice  began  in  the  family  of  Moses.  Besides, 
there  are  in  the  Pentateuch  records  of  the  commence- 
ment of  the  use  of  the  divine  names  employed  by  the 
Hebrews.  Subsequently  to  the  Mosaic  age  the  prophets 
taught  the  doctrine  of  God,  but  introduced  no  new  name 
for  God.  The  Pentateuch  then,  as  its  archaisms  also 
shpw,  belongs  to  the  time  before  Samuel.  If  it  were 
to  be  referred  to  the  age  of  Hosea,  why  should  the 
words  tstiin,  'fast,*  and  hekal,  'temple,'  be  omitted^.? 
We  must  be  allowed  to  retain  the  Pentateuch  in  the 
age  assigned  it  by  the  Jews  and  the  early  Christians. 
Otherwise  we  cannot  account  for  the  accuracy  of  the 
details  regarding  ancient  Egypt  that  we  find  in  it.  It 
consists  of  manuscripts  of  various  writers  selected  by 
Moses,  or  written  under  the  eye  of  Moses,  or  composed 
after  his  death  by  writers  who  shared  his  spirit  and 
enjoyed  Divine  aid. 

^  After  the  exile  quite  a  new  word  for  genealogical  registers  was  intro- 
duced, Neh.  vii.  64,  D^*OT*rit3n,  hammithyahsim.  The  word  in  the 
Pentateuch  is  Hlpir,  toledoth.  Hekal  is  used  in  Samuel  for  the  Tabernacle, 
but  not  earlier. 


SPREAD  OF  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  ANCIENT  WORLD  53 

The  word  Elohim  itself,  as  used  in  the  Pentateuch, 
conveys  an  intimation  of  a  pluraHty  in  the  divine  nature. 
A  plural  noun  in  the  nominative  was  used  with  its  verb 
in  the  singular.  The  creation  of  man  in  Genesis  is 
preceded  by  the  statement,  *  Let  us  make  man  in  our 
image,'  using  the  plural,  and  then  the  gramm.atical  form 
returns  again  to  the  singular.  The  Hebrew  Elohim  is, 
without  doubt,  the  plural  of  majesty,  and  is  parallel  to 
the  holy  of  holies,  the  heaven  of  heavens,  the  rock  of 
ages,  the  Lord  of  hosts.  It  is  an  elevated  Hebraism. 
But  it  is  more  than  a  philological  expression.  It 
harmonizes,  as  implying  a  plurality  of  divine  persons, 
with  the  trinitarianism  of  the  Babylonians.  We  find 
traces  of  the  same  theological  conception  of  God  m  the 
narrative  of  the  angels  who  conversed  with  Abraham 
before  the  destruction  of  the  cities  of  the  plain,  one  of 
whom  is  called  Jehovah.  We  also  find  it  in  the  terms 
used  in  later  portions  of  the  Pentateuch,  when  the 
writer  is  speaking  of  the  angel  of  the  covenant,  who  also 
is  called  Jehovah.  This  conception  of  God  existed 
previously  in  Babylonian  teaching.  It  belongs  to  the 
lost  revelation  long  ago  made  in  the  plains  of  Babylonia. 
The  Babylonians  were  the  first  to  look  on  God  in  the 
light  of  a  Trinity.  In  this  they  were  followed  by  the 
Egyptians.  Professor  Hommel  of  Munich,  in  his  work 
on  The  Babylonian  Origin  of  Egyptian  Culture^  has 
shown  that  the  oldest  Trinity  of  the  Egyptians  is  derived 
from  the  oldest  Trinity  of  the  Babylonians.  Both  these 
Trinities,  however,  belong  to  an  age  of  reflection  and 
of  matured  thinking.  They  would  be  preceded  by 
monotheistic  faith,  while  polytheism  is  later  than  either. 

The   Hebrew  documents  which  employ  Elohim  and 


54  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

Jehovah  Elohim  respectively  as  names  for  God,  must 
be  viewed  as  translated  from  older  documents,  which 
possibly  spoke  of  God  in  the  plural,  as  in  Dan.  iii.  1^ 
*son  of  Elohim,'  rendered  *son  of  the  gods'  in  the  Revised 
Version.  Elohim  is  used  then  in  the  plural  not  only 
for  majesty,  like  kashamayim,  Chaldee,  Shamaya,  *  the 
heavens,'  and  other  Hebrew  and  Chaldee  words,  but 
because  God  was  thought  of  as  really  embracing 
a  plurality.  Egypt  was  very  old  even  in  the  days  of 
Moses,  and  the  oldest  plurality  of  gods  is,  of  course, 
anterior  to  the  Book  of  the  Dead,  which  has  in  it  Isis,  and 
Osiris,  and  other  later  divinities.  The  Genesis  docu- 
ments then  of  the  creation,  the  fall,  and  the  deluge  are 
representative  of  a  very  ancient  belief  in  a  certain  plurality 
in  God  ;  and  in  the  vocabulary  of  the  Hebrew  people  we 
find  proof  that  this  race  in  speaking  of  God  prefers  a 
plural  form.  In  the  common  talk  of  the  nation  the  idea 
of  plurality  in  God  seems  to  be  implied.  Thus  the 
language  became  elevated  in  tone.  But  if  so,  then, 
previous  to  the  polytheism  of  Bel,  Nebo,  and  Merodach, 
it  is  possible  that  there  was  a  divine  element  in  the 
trinitarianism  of  the  Babylonians.  On  this  divine  basis 
human  wisdom  built  up  a  structure  of  its  own.  We  read 
'  The  Spirit  of  God  moved  on  the  face  of  the  waters.' 
This  is  the  inspired  statement  in  the  Hebrew.  So  is  the 
phrase,  '  The  earth  was  without  form  and  void.'  This  is 
both  Babylonian  and  Hebrew  language.  It  is  the 
language  of  the  most  ancient  Jewish  belief,  and  it  is  also 
ancient  Babylonian  belief,  and  was  of  divine  origin  in 
both.  The  Hebrew  account  of  the  creation  was 
transferred  from  Babylonia  to  Palestine.  Hence  we 
must  conclude  that  those  portions  of  the  Babylonian 


SPREAD  OF  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  ANCIENT  WORLD  55 

belief  respecting  God  which  agree  with  the  creed  of 
Jews  and  Christians  are  the  result  of  early  divine 
revelation.  This  justifies  us  in  our  expositions  of 
Scripture  in  stating  that  the  expression,  '  Let  us  make 
man  in  our  image/  implies  something  like  a  trinitarian 
distinction  of  persons  in  God.  It  was  on  this  account 
that  the  idea  of  triple  distinction  in  the  divine  nature 
appears  in  India  after  the  Vedas,  and  in  Chinese 
Tauism,  as  also  in  Plato  and  in  old  Egyptian  ideas.  It 
is  found  in  four  countries,  all  possessing  important 
ancient  literatures ;  and  we  must  recognize  a  divine 
element  in  the  trinitarianism  which  marks  the  philoso- 
phical statements  regarding  the  divine  nature  and  the 
mode  of  the  divine  existence  found  in  Greece,  Egypt, 
India,  and  China.  Plato  does  not  profess  to  have 
originated  his  theosophy  entirely  himself.  He  expanded 
what  he  gathered  from  the  Ionic  philosophers,  from 
Egypt,  from  Babylon,  and  from  Pythagoras. 

Philosophy  did  not  begin  with  the  Greeks.  There 
were  philosophers  before  them  in  Western  Asia  and  in 
Egypt.  As  to  the  Babylonian  origin  of  Egyptian 
theology,  no  one  opposes  the  opinion  of  Hommel,  stated 
publicly  at  the  Congress  of  Orientalists  in  Septem- 
ber, 1892.  For  the  present  we  may  take  this  view  as 
accepted  until  opposing  opinions  have  been  elicited.  The 
New  Testament  regards  Adam,  Abel,  Enoch,  and  Noah 
as  having  received  divine  revelations,  and  these  revela- 
tions, so  far  as  we  can  at  present  see,  would  be  made  to 
them  on  Mesopotamian  ground.  The  language  in  which 
those  revelations  were  given  would  be  the  primaeval 
language  used  by  our  first  ancestors.  The  time  would 
be  before  the  separation  from  the  most  ancient  stock  of 


56  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

language  of  the  Chinese,  the  Tartar,  the  Semitic,  and  the 
Indo-European  systems.  Further,  it  may  be  said  that, 
whenever  revelation  has  been  made,  it  has  always  been 
monotheistic  in  doctrine  ;  and  here  is  suggested  a  curious 
parallel  between  religion  and  language,  curious  and  yet 
most  true,  that  as  monotheism  preceded  polytheism, 
through  the  perversity  of  the  human  mind,  so  monosyl- 
labism  was  developed  into  polysyllabism.  This  parallel 
may  be  carried  yet  another  step  forward.  The  migration 
of  nations  favoured  polytheism.  In  language,  nomadism 
is  fatal  to  local  accent  and  local  gesture.  As  a  substitute 
for  these,  syllables  were  added  to  words,  to  facilitate 
their  being  understood.  Polysyllabism  thus  became 
inevitable  in  new  languages.  Wherever  monosyllabism 
lingers,  it  is  to  be  viewed  as  an  heirloom  of  primaeval 
times  and  a  characteristic  of  primaeval  types. 

We  find  traces  of  the  primitive  trinitarianism  in  India. 
To  my  own  mind  there  remains  no  doubt  that  the 
distinction  between  Brahma,  Vishnu,  and  Siva  was  made 
by  the  Hindus  under  Mesopotamian  influence.  Heathen 
trinitarianism  fell  readily  into  tritheism.  The  Trinity  of 
persons  in  God  was  properly  interpreted  only  by  Jewish 
and  Christian  theologians.  Whatever  in  the  theosophic 
reflections  of  the  Hindu  thinker  has  been  found  to  be 
grand,  inspiring,  and  consolatory,  I  should  be  inclined  to 
ascribe  ultimately  to  the  inflow  at  some  distant  period  of 
divine  thought,  the  gift  of  primaeval  revelation.  Divine 
revelation  gave  to  Babylonia  the  impulse  to  science  and 
to  civilization,  because  it  ennobled  and  purified  human 
faculties,  elevated  human  thought,  and  drew  the  human 
eye  upward  to  that  Eternal  God  who  is  not  far  from 
every  one  of  us. 


SPREAD  OF  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  ANCIENT  WORLD  57 

These  purifying  and  elevating  thoughts  went  with 
each  pilgrim  or  caravan  which  proceeded  by  sea  or  land 
to  whatever  home.  It  might  affect  a  nation  in  its  original 
state,  or  it  might  arrive  later,  and  produce  upon  the  life 
of  a  people  the  most  striking  effects. 

The  Karen  traditions  in  Burma  are  of  the  most  remark- 
able kind.  They  belong  to  a  later  period  than  the 
creation  and  deluge  traditions  of  India,  and  closely 
resemble  in  many  points  the  accounts  found  in  the  first 
chapters  of  the  Old  Testament.  They  would  be  con- 
veyed to  the  Karens  by  sea  at  some  unknown  period. 
The  Karens  were  prepared  to  a  large  extent  by  these 
traditions  to  receive  Christianity  when  brought  to  them 
by  missionaries  in  modern  times.  If  we  take  the  example 
of  the  Celtic  stories  of  enchanted  castles  and  magical 
power,  we  find  they  are  on  the  whole  capable  of  being 
traced  in  some  of  their  features  to  the  Mohammedans, 
whose  civilization  was  Babylonian  and  Greek,  and  reached 
its  acme  of  splendour  a  century  or  two  centuries  after 
Mahomet.  Magic  and  enchantment  originated  earlier, 
and,  like  the  cabbala,  must  be  traced  to  the  source  of  all 
the  higher  forms  of  superstition  in  the  Mesopotamian 
plain.  The  Tauists  of  China  have  similar  stories  of 
magic.  The  Mabinogion  of  the  Welsh,  the  Seven 
Champions  of  Christendom^  the  Arabian  Nights,  and  the 
magical  stories  of  the  Tauists  really  unite  in  certain 
features  common  to  them  all.  The  central  thought  in 
all  is  the  magician's  power  over  Nature.  He  can  raise 
storms  at  his  will,  and  utter  charms  of  startling  efficacy. 
In  what  did  this  originate  ? 

At  the  beginning  of  history  there  were  teachers  who 
received  divine  revelations.     The  names  of  some  of  them 


58  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

in  the  earliest  ages  we  know^  but  there  was  a  race  of 
imitators  who  sprang  up  into  notoriety  in  primitive 
society  and  worked  evil.  The  bad  imitated  the  good. 
Charms  to  control  Nature  were  an  imitation  of  the 
effectual  fervent  prayer  of  the  righteous  man.  False 
religion  derives  much  of  its  influence  over  mankind 
from  its  being  a  slavish  copy  of  the  true.  The  Moham- 
medans in  various  countries  are  many  of  them  firmly 
convinced  of  the  truth  and  importance  of  their  religious 
belief,  and  among  them  are  men  not  a  few  who  to  all 
outward  appearance  are  men  of  piety.  This  shows  that 
divine  revelation  came  down  to  their  forefathers  in  some 
form,  and  so  they  were  taught  some  soul-inspiring  truths 
in  the  first  place.  We  know,  for  example,  that  Mahomet 
himself  learned  very  much  from  the  Bible.  If  he  taught 
his  disciples  without  and  beyond  the  Bible,  he  taught 
them  in  some  things  erroneously,  as  when  he  instructed 
them  to  slay  infidels  and  propagate  their  religion  by 
the  sword.  In  the  first  ages  men  with  characters  like 
Job  and  Melchisedec  would  in  certain  parts  of  Mesopo- 
tamia and  Arabia  teach  truth,  hold  high  communion 
with  God,  and  lead  a  devout  life  of  faith  in  the  invisible. 
These  men  received  marvellous  answers  to  their  prayers, 
and  became  objects  of  envy  to  those  who  proved  to  be, 
like  Simon  Magus,  greedy  and  unprincipled. 

Mythology,  magic  and  superstition  are  all  based  on 
truth,  and  in  the  course  of  history,  truth  has  always 
preceded  fiction.  Revelation  came  first,  and  it  was 
succeeded  by  pseudo-revelations  and  the  pretensions  of 
wizards.  In  Stanley  Poole's  interesting  article  on  magic 
in  Smith's  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  he  ascribes  Egyptian 
magic  entirely  to  negro  influence.     Probably  the  propa- 


SPREAD  OF  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  ANCIENT  WORLD    59 

gation  of  error  has  been  quite  the  other  way.  The 
Egyptians  received  magic  with  their  cosmogony  and 
theogony  from  Babylon,  and  from  them  magic  filtered 
through  to  negroland. 

The  stronger  the  civilization  the  more  powerful  the 
results.  In  the  first  ages  God  gave  special  help  to  man 
on  the  Chaldean  plains.  It  was  there  that  men  first 
learned  to  think  deeply,  and  the  chief  working  cause 
is  found  in  the  moral  and  intellectual  impulse  imparted 
by  divine  communications.  God,  who  gave  to  man 
a  living  soul  and  made  him  lord  of  the  creatures,  also 
taught  him  at  sundry  times,  and  by  teaching  helped  him 
to  advance.  Before  the  call  of  Abraham  it  was  in 
Chaldea  and  parts  adjacent  that  the  heaven-sent  impulse 
was  imparted  which  aided  our  race  to  originate  science, 
art,  and  philosophy,  in  harmony  with,  and  contem- 
poraneously with,  the  ethical  and  religious  advance 
which  with  this  assistance  they  made. 

With  these  conditions  monotheism  must  have  pre- 
ceded all  other  ideas  of  God,  and  the  solar  myth  of  the 
philologists  takes  a  new  form.  When  monotheism  had 
existed  probably  for  some  centuries  a  deteriorating  pro- 
cess commenced.  Mythology  grew  up,  and  resulted  in 
idolatry.  The  Phoenicians  came  from  the  Persian  Gulf 
to  Tyre  and  Sidon,  and  spending  their  life  on  the  sea 
they  imagined  a  god,  Dagon,  as  the  protector  of  their 
ships  ^.  But  in  their  cosmogony  they  follow  Babylonian 
types,  and  do  not  ascribe  creation  to  Dagon.  In  the 
solar  myth  theory  we  lack  a  basis.  Some  poet  wrote 
out   a  myth  ;   but  was   he  thinking  only  of  the  sun  ? 

^  Sayce  has  shown,  however,  that  in  i  Samuel  Dagon  was  an  agricultural 
deity.     He  might  be  marine  also. 


6o  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

Probably  not.  He  had  some  real  object  in  Nature  or 
some  real  man  or  woman  in  view.  The  human  imagina- 
tion works  like  the  builder,  from  a  solid  foundation. 
Paradise  Lost  is  based  on  the  Bible,  aided  by  the 
imaginative  creations  of  classical  and  mediaeval  authors, 
ythe  gods  of  the  week  in  Saxon  mythology  are,  as 
already  described,  a  new  growth  from  a  Babylonian 
original.  The  idea  of  the  week  is  astronomical.  The 
sun,  moon,  and  planets,  just  as  in  China  the  elemental 
powers,  are  thought  of  by  the  Babylonians  as  revolving  in 
a  cycle.  They  rule  each  day  in  succession,  and  are  a  sur- 
vival of  the  physical  philosophy  of  four  thousand  years 
ago.  Fiction  is  a  travesty  of  precedent  fact,  and  Assyrian 
ideas  reappeared  as  Greek  mythology.  The  solar  myth 
theory  is  defective  and  misleading  so  far  as  it  hides  from 
view  a  large  part  of  the  facts,  for  Latin  mythology  drew 
religious  ideas  from  abroad.  Do  we  not  find  by  many 
inscriptions  that  Mithras  was  worshipped  m  England 
and  Germany  and  wherever  the  Roman  legions  were 
quartered?  Yet  Mithras  is  a  Persian  god.  Was  not 
the  worship  of  fire  maintained  in  Rome  in  the  Temple 
of  Vesta  ?  Yet  fire  worship  is  Persian,  and  Vesta  is 
therefore  really  an  Oriental  divinity.  ^So  with  all  the 
forms  of  polytheism  ;  they  point  to  something  earlier, 
something  real,  something  truthful.  Instead  of  con- 
tenting ourselves  with  the  thought  that  a  solar  myth 
is  sufficient  as  an  explanation  of  mythology,  we  should 
do  well  to  find  out  what  real  basis  for  it  exists  in 
Eastern  story  and  Eastern  religious  thought.  Any  scheme 
of  philological  mythology  which  omits  borrowed  ele- 
ments seems  to  me  to  rest  on  very  uncertain  foundations. 
Each  historic  fact  is  complex,  and  if  we  are  to  explain. 


SPREAD  OF  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  ANCIENT  WORLD    6 1 

for  instance,  everything  Aryan  as  Aryan  only,  and 
everything  Semitic  as  Semitic  only,  we  do  not  make 
progress  in  discovering  primaeval  facts.  Whatever  is 
mythological  should  be  eliminated,  and  the  historical 
basis  brought  to  light.  In  old  Greek  tradition  Cadmus 
of  Thebes  represents  the  Phoenicians,  who  actually 
taught  reading  and  writing  at  Thebes,  and  we  have  to 
discover  whether  it  was  in  the  age  of  Moses  or  earlier, 
and  how  much  earlier,  that  the  Phoenicians  taught  the 
Greeks  writing,  and  how  long  before  Homer  myths 
such  as  this  grew  up.  The  historical  fact  is  the  most 
important  thing  in  the  tradition,  because  the  myth 
marks  merely  a  phase  in  literary  development,  while 
the  historic  fact  marks  the  time  when  the  Greeks  ad- 
vanced from  being  a  nation  among  whom  there  were 
poetic  traditions  to  become  a  people  which  had  poets, 
such  as  Homer  and  Hesiod,  who  wrote  down  their 
compositions  and  became  the  delight  of  mankind. 

That  mythology  is  always  preceded  by  realistic  fact, 
I  find  proof  of  in  Chinese  antiquity.  Monotheism 
appears  first  with  the  worship  of  ancestors,  the  practice 
of  divination,  and  a  dualistic  philosophy.  There  is  no 
polytheistic  element,  unless  the  worship  of  the  spirits  of 
Nature  and  of  ancestors  be  so  regarded.  No  names  of 
gods  are  in  any  instance  recorded,  so  shadowy  is  the  con- 
ception. The  art  of  writing  exists,  the  stars  have  names. 
The  dualistic  philosophy  was  treated  physically,  and  not 
mythologically.  At  that  time  the  Babylonians  had 
indeed  advanced  to  polytheism,  but  ideas  from  the  West 
penetrated  slowly  among  the  Chinese.  Mesopotamian 
mythology  mixed  with  Chaldean  astrology  entered 
China  only  about  eight  or  ten  centuries  before  Christ, 


6a  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

whereas  they  had  existed  in  Western  Asia  long  before. 
The  Chinese  learned  polytheism  from  foreign  sources, 
and  began  to  name  and  worship  a  multitude  of  deities 
only  when  foreign  ideas  pressed  into  their  country. 

The  most  suitable  theory  for  the  investigator  to  hold 
is  that  which  represents  the  early  monotheism  of  Asia, 
wherever  found,  in  China  or  in  Persia  or  in  Western  Asia, 
as  resulting  from  divine  revelation  aiding  the  human 
faculties  of  conspicuous  men.  The  first  teachers  of 
mankind  were  devout  patriarchs  who  persuaded  men  to 
call  upon  the  name  of  the  Lord.  They  believed  in  one 
God,  and  lived  by  faith,  being  in  line  with  Abel  and 
Enoch.  In  every  perplexity  they  gave  themselves  to 
prayer.  It  was  in  the  Babylonian  region,  in  a  prae-Semitic 
age  anterior  to  the  Deluge,  that  these  men  lived  ;  and  in 
arguing  for  their  existence  and  their  powerful  influence 
in  pervading  with  a  religious  element  the  mental  life  of 
their  contemporaries  I  am  in  harmony  with  the  thought 
of  the  writer  of  the  eleventh  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews.  We  learn  from  that  record  of  the  heroes  of 
faith  that  these  men  lived  and  laboured  for  truth  in  the 
earliest  ages  of  the  career  of  mankind  on  the  earth. 
To  this  fact  is  due  the  great  prevalence  of  monotheism 
in  the  belief  of  the  most  ancient  nations. 

The  age  was  that  when  Bel,  Merodach,  Nebo,  and 
Istar  were  still  unknown  divinities.  Before  the  names 
of  these  divinities  were  used  there  was  the  physical 
philosophy,  which  looked  out  on  Nature  and  divided  the 
universe  into  heaven,  air,  and  earth.  But  monotheism 
preceded  this  physical  division  of  the  universe  into  three 
parts  with  a  god  ruling  each,  for  in  this  physical  view  of 
the  universe  we  note  the  prevalent  philosophy.     It  is 


SPREAD  OF  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  ANCIENT  WORLD    63 

philosophy,  and  therefore  not  primaeval.  It  is  too 
elaborated  to  be  primaeval.  Before  this  there  would 
exist  that  monotheism  of  which  we  find  traces  in  India, 
Persia,  China,  and  in  the  earliest  literature  of  Greece. 
In  Homer,  for  example,  the  Greek  polytheism  exists 
contemporaneously  with  a  monotheism  which  reveals 
itself  when  the  poet  through  deep  insight  is  swayed  more 
by  the  moral  sense  than  by  the  polytheistic  romance  of 
his  time. 

Belief  in  universal  monotheism  as  anterior  to  all  the 
polytheisms  is  required  by  the  identity  of  moral 
sentiments  found  in  all  the  countries  which  have  ancient 
literatures  still  remaining.  This  identity  of  moral 
sentiment,  which  we  find  in  the  religions  of  China,  India, 
and  Western  Asia,  may  be  partly  traced  to  conscience 
and  the  moral  sense  as  its  source.  But  it  also  implies 
divine  revelation  in  the  earliest  ages.  For  as  the 
Biblical  record  teaches,  God  made  communications  in 
the  form  of  commands  in  the  very  first  ages ;  and  the 
history  of  Cain  informs  us  that  the  law  of  murder 
assumed  in  his  case  a  more  lenient  shape  as  the  result 
of  penitent  supplication  on  the  part  of  the  transgressor. 
Any  devout  men  Hke  Noah,  Samuel,  and  Job,  might  in 
those  days  receive  revelations  from  above.  In  the 
absence  of  a  written  volume  mankind  in  early  days 
before  idolatry  and  polytheistic  philosophy  prevailed 
might  hope  for  divine  guidance  in  answer  to  special 
prayer.    When  idolatry  came  in,  bad  morals  attended  it. 

Early  divination  prevailed  in  the  East  and  throughout 
Europe.  Cicero  in  his  treatise  on  Divination  gives  us 
much  information  upon  it.  In  China  nothing  is  older 
than   divination.     In   that   country  the   instruments  of 


64  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

divination  were  first  the  tortoise-shell.  This,  when 
scorched,  reveals  lines  which  diviners  professed  to  de- 
cipher. Secondly,  a  collection  of  rods  was  in  use.  The 
diviner,  seated  on  the  ground,  threw  down  a  part  of  his 
rods.  They  assumed  a  variety  of  forms,  which  he  inter- 
preted by  a  book  of  symbols.  A  register  was  kept  of 
successful  cases  of  divination,  and  the  diviner's  conclu- 
sions were  carefully  arrived  at  after  consulting  what 
former  diviners  had  said,  when,  with  the  same  combina- 
tions before  him,  he  decided  on  the  indications  afforded 
by  the  rods. 

All  such  divination  we  may  regard  as  a  degraded  form 
of  early  revelation.  Simon  Magus  was  not  the  first 
pretender  to  supernatural  powers,  nor  was  he  the  first  to 
imitate  devout  and  inspired  teachers,  in  the  hope  of 
gaining  the  same  influence  which  they  enjoyed.  In  the 
primaeval  monotheistic  age  men  consulted  the  religious 
teachers  in  the  vicinity  of  whom  they  lived,  and  received 
answers  communicated  by  God,  or  not  so  communicated. 
From  this  ancient  custom  sprang  the  divination  and  oracles 
of  antiquity.  In  judging  of  the  early  growth  of  human 
society  and  the  practices  current  among  the  different 
nations,  it  is  very  important  not  to  lose  sight  of  the  fact 
that  God  has  always  been  the  hearer  of  prayer,  and  that 
there  were  in  the  earliest  ages,  before  the  Aryan  and 
Semitic  races  had  commenced  their  career,  men  who 
feared  God  and  worked  righteousness. 

In  the  Zendavesta  and  in  the  Chinese  classics  God  is 
stated  to  have  made  direct  revelations  to  Zoroaster  in 
the  one  case  and  to  Wen  Wang  in  the  other.  Persia  and 
China  are  both  monotheistic  in  their  early  belief.  In 
Homer  any  of  the  gods  may  speak  to  man,  and  they 


SPREAD  OF  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  ANCIENT  WORLD    65 

may  take  human  forms  for  a  time.  In  Zoroaster's  book 
prolonged  revelations  are  stated  to  be  made  to  him  by 
God,  who  had  received  a  name,  Ahuramazda.  In  the 
Chinese  classics  it  is  only  in  a  very  few  instances  that 
God  is  said  to  make  revelations,  but  God  is  represented 
throughout  these  old  books  as  ruling  human  affairs 
justly  and  without  partiality,  and  His  attention  can*  be 
drawn  by  sacrifices  and  prayer. 

This  idea  of  revelation  is  found  in  poems  which  are 
attributed  to  Chow  Kung,  one  of  the  sages,  and  the  son 
of  Wen  Wang,  founder  of  the  great  dynasty  of  Chow. 
In  some  prose  compositions  of  that  age  God  is  repre- 
sented, as  stated  in  the  last  chapter,  as  announcing  His 
will  in  a  trance  of  several  hours'  or  days  duration.  These 
revelations  are  ascribed  to  the  twelfth  and  seventh 
centuries  before  Christ. 

Such  ideas,  prevalent  in  Persia  and  in  China,  of  revela- 
tions from  God  to  certain  sages  eminent  for  their  virtues, 
would  originate  in  the  actual  revelations  made  at  an 
earlier  period  in  the  countries  where  the  earliest  patri- 
archs had  revelations  from  God.  But  if  so,  then  the 
modern  Tauist  notions  of  revelation  may  be  traced  to  the 
same  age.  Down  to  the  present  day  pretensions  to  divine 
revelations  exist.  Tauist  books  composed  by  modern 
men  are  ascribed  to  communications  made  by  certain 
gods  or  goddesses.  These  pretensions  go  back  to  a  great 
antiquity.  In  the  time  of  Confucius  and  later,  books  were 
written  which  were  ascribed  to  eminent  persons,  while 
the  author's  name  was  not  communicated.  If  an  author 
was  not  rich,  and  wished  his  book  to  live,  he  must  either 
give  it  a  false  authority  and  origin,  to  ensure  copies  being 
made  of  it,  or  resign  the  hope  of  transmitting  his  book  to 

E 


66  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

posterity.  This  may  account  partly  for  pretences  to 
revelation ;  but  the  idea  of  a  revelation  was  earlier.  Real 
divine  communications  in  primaeval  ages  may  have  had 
a  share  in  originating  all  later  pretensions  to  revelation 
from  God. 

So,  also,  taking  the  tree  of  life  to  be  a  very  ancient 
mode  of  representing  the  early  belief  in  the  future  state, 
teachers  of  Christianity  cannot  but  place  extreme  value 
on  the  record  of  the  fall  in  Genesis,  ascribing  as  it  does 
to  divine  agency  the  planting  in  Paradise  of  the  tree  of 
life  and  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil.  In 
fact,  there  is  found  here  a  genuine  instance  of  primaeval 
revelation  affecting,  in  the  highest  possible  degree,  the 
happiness  of  mankind,  both  in  the  present  life  and  in  the 
world  beyond  the  grave.  It  was  the  source  of  the 
Egyptian  myth  of  the  future  state,  of  the  Hindu 
metempsychosis,  and  of  the  Chinese  doctrine  of  judg- 
ment after  death.  The  ancient  navigators  of  the  Indian 
Ocean  spread  the  belief  in  a  future  state  along  the  south 
coast  of  Asia.  From  thence  it  was  carried  to  the 
Polynesian  Islands.  The  form  in  which  it  is  there 
believed  has  been  recently  presented  in  a  full  and 
interesting  manner  in  Dr.  Wyatt  Gill's  Myths  and 
Songs  of  the  Sonth  Pacific,  It  found  its  way  to  North 
America  and  also  to  South  America,  probably  by  passing 
there  from  the  Polynesian  Islands.  By  land  the  Persians 
spread  this  belief  both  before  and  after  fire-worship  arose 
in  the  vicinity  of  the  petroleum  wells  of  Media.  They 
include  the  disciples  of  Zoroaster,  the  magi,  and  probably 
many  predecessors  of  Zoroaster.  It  was  they  that  were 
missionaries  of  the  doctrine  of  a  future  life  of  retribution 
for  man  in  India,  China,  Tartary,  and  Japan. 


SPREAD  OF  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  ANCIENT  WORLD   67 

I  offer,  in  conclusion,  what  appears  to  me  an  unanswer- 
able argument  against  the  advocates  of  isolation  in  the 
growth  of  religious  beliefs.  In  the  Polynesian  Islands 
Sina  is  the  moon  god,  and  Ra  is  the  sun  god.  But  Ra 
is  the  Egyptian  word  for  the  sun  god,  and  Sin  is  a  well- 
known  god  of  the  Babylonians,  and  is  no  other  than  the 
moon.  Further,  the  several  religious  mythologies  of  the 
Polynesian  Islands  are  as  closely  connected  as  the  lan- 
guages of  the  islands  are  with  each  other.  Again,  the 
spirits  of  the  dead  are  supposed  to  go  to  the  spirit  land 
by  the  west  at  sunset,  just  as  in  Homer  and  in  Western 
Asia.  It  is  quite  certain,  then,  that  the  elements  of  the 
religious  ideas  of  the  Polynesians  were  conveyed  by  sea, 
and  modified  afterwards  in  each  island.  If  this  is  true 
on  the  ocean,  it  is  also  true  on  the  continent,  from  which 
the  island  mythologies  were  conveyed.  Hence  it  appears 
to  be  perfectly  safe  teaching  that  divine  light  granted  to 
Mesopotamia,  as  the  Book  of  Genesis  tells  us,  was  cer- 
tainly conveyed  in  radiating  lines  from  the  primaeval 
home  of  mankind  to  the  farthest  borders  of  Asia,  and 
beyond  sea  to  America.  It  seems,  then,  to  be  right  to 
represent  whatever  religious  and  moral  truth  we  find 
believed  in  by  the  nations  of  the  Far  East  as  having  been 
conveyed  to  them  from  the  earliest  home  of  mankind,  and 
as  being  derived  at  first  from  divine  revelation. 

Dreams  and  belief  in  ghosts  are  not  enough  to  explain 
the  origin  of  religion.  Here  Herbert  Spencer  fails  to 
account  for  the  phenomena  needing  to  be  explained. 
Nor  do  ideas  of  kinship  and  the  worship  of  ancestors 
suffice  to  explain  the  origin  of  religion.  Here  Professor 
Robertson  Smith  fails  to  solve  the  problem  of  the  origin 
of  religion  among  the  Semites.     What  we  need  is  divine 

E  % 


68  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

revelation  from  the  first,  communicated  by  devout  and 
able  men,  the  patriarchs  of  the  earliest  ages.  We  must 
not  let  go  the  belief  in  a  common  origin  of  the  human 
race.  There  is  a  sense  in  which  not  Israel  only  but  the 
whole  family  of  man  is  the  chosen  people  of  God. 
Believing  this,  and  remembering  that  God  hath  not  left 
Himself  in  any  country  without  a  witness,  it  would  be 
strange  indeed  if  there  were  not  vestiges  of  divine  revela- 
tion among  the  early  beliefs  of  the  nations  of  the  Far  East. 

Christianity  appeared  on  the  arena  of  human  society 
too  late  to  originate  by  imitation  more  than  one  great 
religion,  the  Mohammedan.  The  religion  taught  by 
God  to  Adam  and  his  descendants  was  able  to  originate 
by  suggestion  the  Persian,  the  Brahminical,  the  Buddhist, 
the  Chinese,  the  Japanese,  and  the  Shamanism  of  Tartary. 
But  it  had  no  book  to  keep  human  perversity  under 
wholesome  check. 

This  renders  the  recovery  of  the  revelations  made 
more  difficult.  They  are  scattered  in  old  world  litera- 
tures, and  can  only  be  collected  by  diligence  and  care. 
The  advantage  possessed  by  Judaism  and  by  Christianity 
in  the  possession  of  a  divine  record  is  inestimable.  Chris- 
tianity is  engaged  in  a  struggle  to  overthrow  the  great 
religions  which  still  keep  their  hold  on  Asiatic  nations. 
The  aid  afforded  by  the  Christian  books  of  revelation  in 
this  conflict  is  great.  The  religions  of  Egypt,  Rome, 
Greece,  Syria,  and  Scandinavia  fell  long  ago,  unable  to 
resist  the  Christian  assault.  Judging  from  the  appear- 
ance of  decay  in  Eastern  religions  at  the  present  time,  it 
may  be  predicted  that  not  long  after  our  age  those 
religions  will  fall  into  hopeless  oblivion,  and  one  after 
another  yield  their  places  to  the  Christian  faith. 


CHAPTER   V 

POLYTHEISM   IN   CHINA 

STAR-worship  is  certainly  the  form  that  mythology 
took  in  early  times  in  China,  and  it  followed  philosophy. 
China  gives  us  information  by  fair  inference  on  the 
successive  changes  that  took  place  in  the  religion  of 
the  Persians ;  and  from  that  information  it  appears 
that  the  dual  philosophy  grew  up  before  star-worship, 
and  the  reason  of  this  is  close  at  hand.  Astronomical 
observation  came  before  star-worship,  too,  because  the 
Babylonians  knew  that  the  stars  are  set  for  signs  and 
for  seasons,  and  for  days  and  for  years.  From  this  good 
beginning  men  fell  to  philosophizing,  and  with  doubtful 
Success.  So  we  arrive  at  the  conclusion,  that  as  in 
China  so  in  Persia,  and  before  that  in  Babylon,  the 
more  intelligent  views  of  an  earlier  time,  founded  on 
astronomy,  morality,  and  sound  politics,  were  followed 
by  popular  superstitions.  Science  gave  the  Babylonians, 
first  the  Accadians  and  afterwards  the  Chaldeans,  the 
knowledge  of  Nature's  laws.  All  went  well  until  a 
priestly  class  secured  to  themselves  power  over  the 
national  imagination,  and  led  that  imagination  where 
they  pleased. 

This   is  the   reason   that  we   find  in  China,  in  her 


70  ^^LIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

earliest  history,  instead  of  Scorpio,  which  meets  us  in 
the  Greek  zodiac,  the  Green  dragon ;  instead  of  Leo 
there  is  the  Red  bird  ;  instead  of  Taurus  and  the 
Pleiades  we  have  the  White  tiger;  and  instead  of 
Aquarius,  such  hybernating  animals  as  the  Serpent  and 
Tortoise  to  represent  Winter.  But  in  fact  the  Pleiades 
are  mentioned,  and  the  constellation  Hii  in  Aquarius, 
by  name.  Thus  we  are  furnished  with  a  definite  limit 
to  the  mythological  creativeness  of  that  age.  The  stars 
in  small  groups  or  single  bright  stars  had  good  astro- 
nomical names.  The  mythologists  made  larger  groups, 
to  give  definiteness  to  the  prevalent  philosophy.  Star- 
worship  began  in  this  way ;  but  the  religious  instinct 
in  man  cannot  be  satisfied  with  star-worship  alone. 
Man  longs  to  know  the  great  Being  who  rules  all. 

Monotheism  went  to  China  with  the  burnt  sacrifices 
of  their  early  religion.  Ancestral  worship  the  Chinese 
took  with  them  also ;  for  this,  too,  is  found  among 
some  ancient  nations — the  Romans,  for  example,  who 
paid  honour  specially  to  ancestors.  But  the  ancestral 
worship  of  China  was  specially  elaborated  by  the 
Chinese  themselves,  while  it  never  blossomed  into  a 
mythology.  It  may,  indeed,  be  questioned  if  the  Chinese 
would  ever  have  made  for  themselves  any  mythology 
whatever,  but  for  impulses  and  suggestions  supplied  to 
them  from  foreign  sources.  Mythology  is  like  poetry, 
the  effect  partly  of  lengthened  culture  and  partly  of 
new  scenes,  striking  aspects  of  Nature  and  impressive 
events  in  history.  Without  these  neither  mythology  nor 
highly  imaginative  poetry  will  appear,  for  they  are  the 
result  of  strong  mental  power  and  liveliness  of  tempera- 
ment, such  as  are  produced  by  mixture  of  races,  travel- 


POLYTHEISM  IN  CHINA  \  71; 

ling,  war,  and  the  elevation  of  mind  caused  by  a  cfvilized 
training  on  specially  susceptible  minds.  Chinese  litera- 
ture, realistic  as  it  is,  shows  what  a  nation  with  political 
sense  strongly  developed  and  with  clear  consciousness  in 
matters  of  morality  can  do ;  but  they  lack  that  imagi- 
native faculty  which  wrote  Homer.  The  star  Venus 
has  never  become  to  them  a  beautiful  goddess,  nor 
have  they  ever  gone  beyond  the  bare  outline  of  a 
solar  myth. 

The  extraordinary  antiquity  of  monotheism  requires 
us  to  recognize  that  the  Chinese  and  the  Aryans  were 
originally  monotheists,  and  that  they  were  so  in  con- 
nexion with  a  dual  philosophy.  All  this  was  anterior 
to  the  Hindu  philosophy  and  mythology,  and  also  to 
that  of  Greece  and  Western  Asia.  In  the  Chinese 
classics  of  divination  and  history  there  is  no  mythology, 
but  there  is  monotheism  and  a  dual  philosophy.  These 
doctrines  were  also  held  by  the  Iranians,  who  fought 
with  Turan  in  the  lands  of  the  Oxus  and  Jaxartes. 
The  Aryans  and  the  Chinese  are  thus  seen  to  be  alike 
in  having  preserved  the  old  religion  of  an  earlier  age. 

Herodotus  notes  the  love  of  the  Persians  for  worship 
on  mountains,  condemns  it,  and  as  a  Greek  declares 
his  preference  for  anthropomorphic  religion,  with  temples 
and  altars  in  the  Greek  way. 

The  assignment  of  human  form  and  attributes  to  God 
began  in  Western  Asia,  and  spread  into  India,  Egypt, 
Greece,  and  Italy.  The  Persians  would  not  entertain 
this  innovation,  nor  did  the  Chinese  accept  an  anthro- 
pomorphic conception  of  the  gods  till  much  later. 

The  dual  philosophy  was  one  of  the  causes  for  the 
lengthened  preservation  of  the  primaeval  monotheism 


7Z  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

among  these  two  nations.  Though  it  led  in  later  times 
to  the  idea  among  the  Persians  of  a  malevolent  creator 
in  addition  to  Ahuramazda,  this  was  not  the  case  in 
China. 

About  B.C.  1760  the  Shang  dynasty  was  established 
in  China.  There  was  an  increase  of  religious  feeling 
and  faith  in  the  country.  During  the  six  centuries  of 
this  dynasty  attention  was  given  to  astronomy,  and 
Wu  hien  is  mentioned  as  a  noted  astronomer.  This 
fact  points  to  continued  intercourse  with  the  West,  and 
especially  with  the  land  where  the  stars  were  studied 
with  much  greater  zeal  than  they  ever  were  in  China. 
At  the  end  of  this  dynasty  appeared  the  Hung  fan. 
a  remarkable  document  found  in  the  Book  of  History, 
which  indicates  that  the  Chinese  of  that  age  had  an 
acquaintance  with  divination,  dreams,  and  weather  pre- 
dictions, such  as  might  be  derived  from  some  region 
where  the  stars  and  all  meteorological  phenomena  were 
carefully  watched. 

The  emperor  Tang  said  when  sacrificing,  *  I  dare  offer 
a  black  heifer,  and  make  a  clear  announcement  to  the 
divine  ruler  on  high.'  He  then  prays  the  aid  of  heaven 
in  punishing  that  wicked  dynasty  which  had  rendered 
China  miserable  by  oppression  and  neglect.  On  this 
occasion  he  also  prays  to  the  celestial  and  terrestrial 
spirits,  since  they  are,  on  behalf  of  heaven,  ministers  of 
just  retribution  upon  all  criminals,  to  send  down  calami- 
ties on  that  dynasty.  The  beings  here  referred  to  are 
not  beings  of  human  origin  canonized  after  their  death, 
but  ^ngelic  powers  each  believed  to  rule  over  some 
special  department  of  Nature.  Naturally  we  may  identify 
them  with  the  six  subordinate  divinities  of  the  previous 


POLYTHEISM  IN  CHINA  73 

portion  of  the  history.  This  shows  the  nature  and 
extent  of  the  polytheism  of  that  period.  This  emperor 
sometimes  uses  the  personal  term  for  God.  At  other 
times  he  calls  God,  heaven.  The  sense  of  the  Chinese 
word  Ti  for  God  is  emperor,  ruler  ;  and  the  dominance 
of  this  meaning  leads  to  the  prefix  Shang,  upper,  to  dis- 
tinguish between  the  emperor  and  the  Almighty. 

The  question  then  arises,  Was  the  personal  name  earlier 
than  the  name  heaven  ?  Was  Ti  as  the  word  for  God 
earlier  than  Tien  as  applied  to  God.  For  myself  I  think 
the  personal  name  was  applied  to  God  earlier.  Primitive 
men  were  not  imaginative,  but  realistic.  The  ancient 
Chinese  were  not  less  realistic  than  the  modern  Chinese. 
Imaginative  literature  dates  in  China  from  the  fifth  or 
sixth  centuries  before  Christ,  or  thereabouts.  A  realistic 
term  like  Shangti  or  ti  is  likely  to  precede  an  honorific 
term  like  tien,  '  heaven.'  Death  by  a  thunderbolt  would 
occur  occasionally.  Primitive  men  would  reason  from 
the  effect  to  the  cause.  There  must  be  an  agent  to 
inflict  sudden  death,  and  that  agent  is  in  the  sky.  He 
exercises  authority  over  men,  and  is  angry  with  the 
wicked.  Reasoning  in  this  way,  the  thought  was  realistic, 
and  monotheism  would  precede  that  honorific  phraseo- 
logy which  ascribes  moral  government  to  heaven  when 
God  is  meant. 

All  through  the  periods  already  mentioned  divination 
was  practised  to  know  the  secret  will  of  heaven.  There 
was  in  China  the  same  faith  in  the  possibility  to  discover 
that  will  by  human  means  which  existed  in  Egypt, 
Assyria,  and  Babylon.  The  practice  of  divination, 
among  primitive  nations  implies  personality  in  God. 
There  was  no  pantheism  in  the  world  till  later.  ^  Reason 


/ufV/ 


"^^Rzir^f 


74  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

preceded  imagination.  The  Indians  and  the  Greeks 
worked  out  a  pantheistic  scheme  of  the  world. 

In  the  twelfth  century  before  Christ  China  deposed  the 
Shang  dynasty  and  elevated  the  Chow  family  to  the 
throne.  The  actors  were  two  wise  and  able  sovereigns 
and  one  most  able  statesman.  Their  titles  were  Wen  wang, 
Wu  wang,  and  Chow  kung.  The  influence  of  the  first  and 
third  of  these  on  the  religious  ideas  of  the  Chinese  was 
remarkable.  Wen  wang  re-cast  the  Book  of  Divination. 
He  kept  much  of  the  old  manual  and  added  large 
portions,  for  he  was  anxious  to  know  the  secret  will  of 
heaven,  and  often  had  the  fifty  divining-sticks  handled 
and  thrown,  in  order  that  he  might  discover  that  will. 
Keeping  the  old  symbols,  he  combined  them  in  a  new 
form,  and  left  a  new  manual  to  be  used  with  the  old. 
Foreign  philosophy  was  adopted,  and  peeps  through 
between  the  lines.  He  was  aided  by  his  son,  who 
was  a  poet,  philosopher,  mathematician,  and  statesman 
combined. 

The  ancient  diviners  found  it  necessary  to  combine 
astrology  with  the  symbolism  of  the  divining-sticks. 
Orientation  was  essential.  The  cardinal  points  were 
defined.  The  white  tiger,  Taurus,  belonged  to  the  stars 
of  the  west,  and  the  green  dragon,  Scorpio,  to  the  east. 
The  diviner  was  also  astrologer,  and  we  find  traces  in 
this  manual  so  early  as  the  twelfth  century  before  Christ 
of  the  tiger  in  the  west,  just  as  we  have  in  the  earliest 
part  of  the  Book  of  History  the  red  bird  in  the  south. 
There  seems^  therefore,  no  room  to  doubt  that  Chinese 
astrology  was  Babylonian  in  its  origin,  and  with  it  the 
worship  of  the  stars.  The  fact,  therefore,  that  the  worship 
of  the  stars  is  a  conspicuous  part  of  the  religion  of 


POLYTHEISM  IN  CHINA 


75 


Zoroaster  does  certainly,  when  the  Chinese  star-worship 
is  duly  considered,  strengthen  the  argument  for  the 
essential  unity  of  the  old  Persian  and  Chinese  religion. 

The  habit  of  the  Chinese  mind  is  practical  and  utili- 
tarian. They  do  not  adopt  Hindu  ideas  of  caste,  nor 
have  they  followed  the  Semitic  race  in  abstinence  from 
swine's  flesh.  But  what  is  in  their  view  useful  they 
adopt  from  strangers  readily.  They  have  always  been 
borrowers.  This  rendered  the  spread  of  Buddhism 
possible,  and  it  also  renders  the  spread  of  Christianity 
possible,  because  those  nations  which  are  without 
religious  scruples  are  the  most  easily  converted. 

We  find  the  constellations  of  the  cycle  of  twenty- 
eight  known  to  the  Chinese  B.C.  2300.  They  were  also, 
by  fair  inference,  known  when  Wen  Wang  was  writing 
his  manual.  In  Chow  Kung's  Book  of  Laws ^  there  are 
found  the  astrological  precepts  which  were  intended  to 
guide  the  imperial  astronomers  in  discharging  their 
duties.  The  twenty-eight  nakshatras  are  also  Hindu 
and  Arabian,  and  this  fact  demonstrates  the  feasibility  of 
national  borrowings  on  a  large  scale.  The  Hindus 
were  not  navigators,  nor  did  they  erect  observatories, 
but  they  borrowed  the  astronomy  which  men  of  other 
countries,  navigators  of  the  seas  and  builders  of  observa- 
tories, had  learned  and  taught.  So  it  was  in  China. 
About  B.C.  800  the  Chinese  elaborated  a  form  of 
astrology  adapted  to  their  own  country.  They  took 
over  the  Babylonian  astronomy  and  astrology  as  com- 
municated by  the  Magi,  and  worked  it  up  into  a  system 
adapted  to  their  own  country.  Star-worship  became 
universal.  Each  small  duchy  or  marquisate  had  its  star 
gods.     Spica  ruled  in  eastern  Honan.     Orion  ruled  in 


76  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

Shansi.  Legends  sprang  up  to  suit  the  worship.  The 
star-worship  of  the  cities  of  North  China  became  in 
a  certain  way  a  repetition  of  the  star-worship  of  the 
cities  of  Babylonia.  The  Chinese  had  faith  in  the  pro- 
tecting influence  of  stars  at  that  time,  though  they  lost 
it  when  the  Buddhist  and  Tauist  mythologies  appeared, 
and  pushed  out  of  sight  the  old  legends.  While  it  re- 
mained during  the  dreary  lingering  centuries  of  the 
Chow  dynasty,  this  star-worship  was  regarded  as  a  pro- 
tection from  fires,  which  in  cities  were  at  that  time  very 
common  and  very  alarming. 

At  the  same  time  the  worship  of  the  Five  Emperors 
appeared.  These  were  in  fact  the  five  planets  or  essences 
or  moving  forces  or  colours.  Call  them  what  you  please, 
these  things  are  much  the  same  to  him  who  looks  on 
the  heavens  with  the  Babylonian  eye.  If  we  could  ask 
the  Babylonian  sage  of  that  time  what  the  planets  are,  he 
would  have  said  they  are  the  purest  forms  of  spiritual 
life,  centres  of  energy  and  divine  in  their  nature.  Their 
colour  indicates  their  influence.  They  move  as  com- 
manded, and  their  place  and  appearance  at  any  time  are 
an  index  to  the  will  of  the  Supreme  in  regard  to-  those 
localities  over  which  they  presided. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  China  in  adopting  this 
opinion  regarding  the  planets  was  following  the  teaching 
of  the  wise  men  of  Babylon.  The  mythology  of  the 
five  emperors,  Venus,  Jupiter,  Mars,  Mercury,  and 
Saturn,  which  entered  China  about  B.C.  800  in  a  more 
complete  shape  than  before,  must  be  regarded  as  of 
Western  origin.  If  any  one  should  venture  to  deny 
this  statement,  how  could  he  explain  the  invention  of 
the  sun-dial  and-  clepsydra  ?      These  instruments  were 


POL  YTHEISM  IN  CHINA  7  7 

first  mentioned  in  China  about  B.C.  11 20  and  800,  and 
have  been  in  use  ever  since.  The  Greeks  say  the 
clepsydra  came  to  them  from  Babylon.  The  Babylonian 
origin  of  Chinese  astrology  is  thus  placed  beyond  doubt. 

Confucius  and  Mencius  maintained  the  ancient  worship, 
but  addressed  no  searching  questions  to  Nature  upon  the 
being  and  attributes  of  God.  They  did  not  care  to 
know  more  of  the  Sovereign  of  the  Universe  than  the 
ancients  knew.  They  held  their  views  firmly,  because 
those  views  came  by  tradition.  They  teach  no  astrology, 
no  philosophy  of  the  five  elements^  no  cosmogony,  no 
mythology.  They  were  content,  when  asked  for  more 
information,  with  the  agnostic  standpoint,  and  their  reply 
was,  '  We  do  not  know.'  Their  witness  to  God's  being 
and  nature  is  a  recognition  of  monotheism  as  the  old 
belief  of  China's  wise  men  in  an  age  long  anterior  to 
their  own. 

Lautsi's  views  were  influenced  by  importations  from 
abroad.  His  follower  Lyets'i  describes  the  teaching 
of  a  magician,  who  in  a  most  graphic  way  taught  the 
Persian  and  Indian  views  of  Paradise.  Lautsi'  believed 
in  the  personality  of  God.  He  speaks  of  Ti,  God  ^ 
The  mind  of  Lautsi'  was  not  content  to  view  the  uni- 
verse as  being  without  a  sovereign  ruler.  He  does  not 
add  the  old  prefix  Shang,  'supreme.'  Nor  do  other 
Tauist  writers  in  early  times  add  this  word,  and  the 
omission  is  an  evidence  that  the  ancient  Chinese  belief 
was   monotheistic.     The  word   shang  appears  to  have 

*  I  suppose  this  word  to  be  the  same  with  the  Aryan  and  Semitic  names 
for  God.  The  tone  of  ti,  being  the  departing  tone,  is  suggestive  of  a  lost 
final.  Such  a  final  could  only  be  /.  On  philological  grounds  this  is  very 
probable. 


78  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

been  prefixed  to  distinguish  God  from  the  emperor,  and 
not  to  distinguish  the  supreme  God  from  other  gods, 
such  as  the  five  Ti  of  the  Chow  dynasty.  Here  we 
may  note  a  parallelism  between  Persia  and  China.  God 
received  the  name  Ahuramazda,  and  afterwards  the 
names  of  the  six  Amesha  spentas  were  added.  As  to 
the  time  when  this  addition  was  made,  it  would  be 
before  the  '  White  ti '  and  '  Red  ti '  were  heard  of  in 
China.  The  Amesha  spentas  would  then  become  an 
imperfect  Persian  development  of  polytheism  previous 
to  the  eighth  century  before  Christ.  It  is  a  curious 
fact  that  the  term  Shangti,  so  common  among  Con- 
fucianists,  is  used  for  the  ancient  emperors  in  the  Sti 
wen,  the  most  important  medical  treatise  of  China, 
a  work  of  about  B.C.  400.  The  school  of  Confucius 
mean  by  it  the  Supreme  Lord  of  the  World.  The 
Tauists  use  it  for  former  sages  who  attained  the  im- 
perial dignity.  This  shows  that  Ti,  the  Tauist  word, 
and  also  that  of  the  Confucianists,  is  the  true  word  for 
God,  as  it  is  also  for  the  emperor.  This  then  renders 
it  indisputable  that  Lautsi',  in  employing  this  term,  was 
a  monotheist.  The  Brahman  philosophy  of  the  time 
had  crept  into  China,  and  with  it  a  cosmogony  which 
he  adopted.  His  cosmogony  was  simply  one  produced 
two,  the  principle  of  light  and  darkness,  two  prodticed 
four,  the  four  seasons,  foiir  produced  eight,  that  is,  the 
transformations  of  the  universe  figured  by  the  fifty 
divining-sticks  and  known  as  the  Pa  kwa.  This  was 
not  properly  a  cosmogony,  if  that  term  be  dissociated 
from  the  yearly  beauty  of  the  spring  and  the  fading 
glory  of  the  autumn  in  the  regular  course  of  Nature, 
but  it  is  a  cosmogony  which  includes  both  the  beginning 


POLYTHEISM  IN  CHINA  79 

of  the  universe  and  all  present  and  past  transformations 
visible  in  it. 

In  fact,  It  has  more  of  India  than  of  Persia  in  it. 
Lautsi's  teachers  derived  their  impulses  from  Central 
or  Eastern  India.  It  was  after  the  age  of  the  Vedas 
that  Brahma  came  to  be  pictured  as  dwelling  in  a 
Paradise,  and  there  was  beside  Brahma,  a  Prajapati, 
or  creator.  Before  this,  Dr.  Oldenberg  tells  us,  there 
was  a  time  when  Brahma  was  still  a  principle  rather 
than  a  realized,  fully  constituted  god.  But  before 
this  again  Atman  was  the  breath  which  became  the 
universe,  and  was,  so  to  speak,  the  soul  of  the  world. 
This  was  the  view  of  the  later  Vedas.  When  such 
a  view  was  held  by  thinkers  in  Eastern  India  it  crept 
through  into  China  and  originated  the  philosophy  of 
the  Tauists.  The  teaching  of  the  astrological  period 
had  stirred  men's  minds.  Mathematics  and  the  philo- 
sophical part  of  the  old  divination  had  excited  men  to 
think,  and  when  the  new  ideas  came  in  from  India 
about  the  Atman,  which  is  either  the  reason  tau  or  the 
breath  cHi  of  the  Tauists,  they  developed  a  remarkable 
literature  with  thoughts  and  aspirations  both  far-reach- 
ing and  deep.  Lautsi's  word  for  the  Indian  Atman  is 
Tail,  *  reason,'  that  of  Lyetsi  is  CKi^  *  breath.'  Lautsl* 
thought  of  the  underlying  principle  which  pervades  the 
universe.  His  disciple  thought  of  the  breath  which 
originated  all  things.  The  word  Atman  then  embraces 
both.  Lautsfs  high  thoughts  must  therefore  be  partly 
ascribed  to  a  foreign  source  and  the  stimulus  afforded 
by  foreign  thought. 

In  this  way  Tauism  can  best  be  accounted  for.   A  prac- 
tical nation  like  the  Chinese  could  not,  unaided,  originate 


8o  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

a  book  like  that  of  Lautsi.  The  thing  is  unknown  to 
the  history  of  human  opinion.  It  is  too  different  from 
the  literature  which  preceded  it  to  be  entirely  original. 
A  Chinese  is  not  a  philosopher  except  by  education. 
Lautsi  would  not  write  the  work  known  as  Tau  te  king 
except  under  the  excitement  of  powerful  influences.  If 
w^e  trace  the  use  of  a  favourite  phrase  like  Tsau  hwa 
chu,  'creating  Lord,'  'the  creator/  it  is  new  in  the 
Tauist  authors.  It  corresponds  in  force  to  the  Sanscrit 
Prajapati ;  and  when  this  is  understood,  the  mystery  of 
the  origin  of  Tauist  ideas  on  God  and  creation  is  solved. 
The  Tauists  in  using  the  term  Tsau  hwa  chti  spoke  of 
a  creator  as  a  fashioner  rather  than  a  maker  out  of 
nothing,  but  they  would  not  have  found  occasion  for 
the  term  at  all  but  for  the  Brahmanism  of  Eastern  India. 
Nor  would  they  have  elevated  the  word  vapour,  cJti,  into 
a  primaeval  principle,  the  simplest  form  of  the  matter  of 
which  the  universe  is  composed,  but  for  the  same  neigh- 
bouring philosophy.  So  also  Atman,  and  even  the  word 
Brahma,  is  the  original  reason,  and  to  some  extent  that 
which  became  the  Greek  Aoyos,  the  dabar  or  millah 
of  the  Babylonians.  This  doctrine  sprang  up  on  the 
banks  of  the  Euphrates,  was  imitated  in  India,  and 
transferred  to  China.  Chwangtsi*  says  of  Lautsi  that 
he  taught  that  light  was  produced  from  darkness,  and 
actually  existing  things  sprang  from  invisible  substance. 
The  early  Tauists  came  to  have  the  notion  that  pure 
essence  underlies  the  grosser  forms  of  Nature ;  and  this 
mode  of  thinking  was  contemporary  with  astrology,  with 
astronomy,  and  with  what  may  be  termed  not  inaptly 
the  microcosmic  theory  of  the  human  frame.  In  our 
bodies  the  five  elements  wander  as  the  planets  do  in  the 


POLYTHEISM  IN  CHINA  8 1. 

sky,  the  veins,  arteries,  and  other  vessels  proceed  from 
the  head  to  the  feet,  like  the  twelve  hours  round  the 
horizon.  Spring,  summer,  autumn,  and  winter,  are  all 
represented  in  the  physical  constitution  of  man.  Both 
alchemy  and  astrology  rest  upon  the  doctrine  that  man 
is  a  smaller  universe.  To  the  alchemist  and  astrologer 
this  is  a  sine  qua  non.  It  is  evident  then  that  China  has 
borrowed  largely  from  Babylonia,  for  otherwise  how 
could  this  astrological  science  be  the  same  in  both 
countries  ? 

It  is  not  then  saying  too  much  to  assert  that  the 
cosmogony,  the  divine  reason,  and  the  monotheism  of 
the  Tau  te  King  are  Babylonian  in  origin,  but  modified 
by  Hindu  philosophy  on  their  way  to  China,  as  well  as 
by  the  opinions  of  Lautsi'  himself  when  writing  the 
famous  book  which  goes  by  his  name. 

Mythology  with  names  began  very  early  among  the 
Accadians  and  Egyptians.  In  Sargon's  days  several 
gods  had  received  names,  and  that  was  B.C.  2250.  The 
Persians  had  their  own  system  of  divine  government  by 
subordinate  divinities,  with  monotheism  at  its  base.  The 
Hindus  had  old  gods  of  a  more  spiritual  nature  brought 
with  them  to  India.  They  had  Nature  deities,  like  the 
rest  of  the  Indo-European  races,  invented  by  them- 
selves. The  Scandinavian  and  Teutonic  Wodin  is  almost 
certainly  of  Tartar  origin.  I  offer  a  proof  of  this  here. 
The  Latin  ira^  the  German  wuth^  the  Celtic  Gwydion, 
the  god  Wodin  of  the  Sagas,  appear  to  be  words  derived 
from  a  mother  word  in  the  Mongol  tongue.  There  we 
find  ada^  an  evil  being,  a  fury.  Ada  ujihu  is  in  Mongol 
to  '  look  on  as  bad.'  Agoril  is  anger ^  and  agorlaho  is  *  to 
be  angry.'     The  Tartars  very  anciently  dropped  ag^  to 

F 


8a  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

form  ada.  In  this  state  it  passed  into  Indo-European. 
Ira  in  Latin  has  lost  initial  g,  as  the  Mongols  have.  This 
account  of  the  word  Odin  may  be  supported  by  adduc- 
ing other  words.  It  is  a  fact  that  the  word  elf,  *  fairy/ 
is  albin  in  Mongol,  and  lip  in  Chinese.  Also  the  Erlking 
of  Goethe  is  erlig  han  in  Mongol,  where  erl  is  erlig  and 
kifig  is  hail.  These  three  examples  support  each  other, 
and  suggest  that  Tartar  mythology  is  Teutonic  my- 
thology in  an  early  stage.  The  angry  appearance  of 
sky  and  air  in  a  thunderstorm  is  the  source  from  which 
this  mythology  grew  up  in  Tartary  and  was  conveyed 
thence  to  the  western  homes  of  the  Teutons. 

From  this  it  will  follow  readily  that  the  old  religious 
usages  and  beliefs  of  China  and  Europe  ought  to  be 
carefully  compared.  We  need  not  indeed  compare 
Chinese  early  mythology  with  the  Olympian  mythology 
of  Homer,  with  any  hope  of  finding  resemblances,  be- 
cause that  mythology  is  too  abundantly  pervaded  with 
poetic  creativeness,  but  the  more  ancient  Nature  worship 
of  the  Italians  may  be  compared  with  good  reason. 

The  Lares  and  Penates  of  ancient  Italy  should  be 
considered  in  view  of  the  Shetsik  of  old  China.  The 
Penates  appear  to  be  the  Chinese  tablets  of  ancestors. 
The  ancient  Romans  had  images.  The  Chinese  had 
tablets  inscribed  with  the  posthumous  title  of  the  dead. 
Penates  is  '  inner '  or  domestic.  Tsu  is  the  •'  source.' 
The  Lares  are  the  She  or  zhat  of  China,  rulers  of  the 
land.  By  mutation  of  letters  the  Eastern  word  became 
lar  in  Italy,  and  this  word,  changed  from  dat^  agrees 
in  its  elements  with  terra, '  earth.'  The  Chinese  written 
form  )jfJ2,  Shiy  means  spirit  of  the  land.  That  I  am  right 
in  such  an  identification  of  the  Chinese  word  She  with 


POLYTHEISM  IN  CHINA  "^7^ 

lar,  IS  supported  by  the  three  examples  from  Mongolian. 
In  addition  it  may  be  mentioned  that  the  terrestrial  gods 
had  sacrifices  presented  to  them  both  in  Italy  and  in 
China,  and  that  in  China  they  are  still  offered  at  the 
altar  of  earth  in  Peking.  In  both  cases  the  sacrifices 
were  buried  in  the  earth  and  libations  poured  on  the 
ground.  This  custom  is  in  China  still  maintained. 
The  superi  dii  of  Plautus  are  analogical  to  the  ^  jjj^, 
tieit  shen  of  China.  This  term  may  be  rendered  the 
celestial  gods.  The  inferi  dii  of  Livy  are  the  terres- 
trial gods,  or  the  ^^  jjj^,  ti  cfii^  or  di  gi  of  China. 
The  word  gi,  here  used  for  earth  spirits,  means  earth. 
The  Mongol  word  for  earth  is  gajir.  The  Greek  ^eol 
xQovioi,  the  gods  of  the  nether  world,  is  an  exact 
equivalent,  except  that  the  Chinese  gave  these  spirits 
no  names,  while  the  Greeks  called  them  Demeter, 
Persephone,  Hermes,  and  the  Erinyes.  Through  Greek 
fondness  for  myth-making,  the  names  were  given.  The 
Chinese  and  the  Latins  are  behind  the  Greeks  in  that 
respect.  There  must  then  have  been  some  central 
position  in  Asia  where  these  religious  usages  could  grow 
up.  The  traditions  preserved  in  Virgil's  poem  of  the 
flight  of  Aeneas  of  Troy  show  that  Asia  Minor  was 
a  midway  link,  and  this  accords  with  other  features  of 
resemblance  between  the  archaeological  facts  connected 
with  South  Europe  and  China.  The  old  mythology  of 
China  is  like  that  of  Italy  and  Greece,  as  that  of  Scandi- 
navia and  Germany  is  like  that  of  Mongolia  and  Man- 
churia. The  connexion  is  latitudinal.  I  find  the  same 
thing  in  the  names  of  animals.  Canis  and  hound  mean 
'  the  follower,'  and  are  Uiuen  in  new,  and  Uun  in  old 
Chinese.     Dog  is  nohai  in  Mongol,  n   having  changed 

F  % 


84  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

to  d,  and  g  to  //.  The  word  vidpes  and  aXcoTn]^,  Lith. 
lape^  names  for  the  fox,  are  dobi  in  Manchu,  and  li  in 
Chinese,  probably  for  lip.  The  root  means  running  in 
laufen,  *  to  run.'  The  Tibetan  is  Iba.  So  if  we  search 
for  the  equivalent  of  the  Chinese  ^^i^, '  the  stork,'  we  find 
it  in  ciconia,  the  stork,  and  in  k-vkvos,  the  swan.  The  root 
means  *  taking  long  steps.' 

This  seems  to  show  that  migrations  have  followed 
isothermal  lines,  and  that  the  Caspian  Sea  has  caused 
a  bisection  m  the  band  of  country  over  which  nations 
in  their  migrations  eastward  and  westward  have  passed. 
The  religious  traditions  of  China  and  of  South  Europe 
show  striking  resemblances,  because  the  movement  of 
the  nations,  or  groups  of  families,  having  these  tradi- 
tions proceeded  along  parallels  of  latitude  south  of  the 
Caspian. 

The  Chinese  lai^es  or  shetsik  are  classical  and  ancient. 
They  did  not  receive  names  ;  yet  the  worship  of  these 
spirits  of  the  land  and  grain  was  polytheistic,  if  we  wish 
to  speak  strictly,  and  it  continues  to  the  present  time 
with  little  change.  Such  worship  would  easily  grow  up 
among  an  agricultural  people  believing,  as  all  the  Asiatics 
do,  that  there  are  spirits  everywhere  in  Nature.  They 
take  the  place  which  Ceres  occupied  in  ancient  Italy, 
and  belong  therefore  to  naturalistic  religion  grafted  on 
the  ancient  monotheistic  faith. 

An  age  of  poetry  succeeded  the  age  of  Tauist  philo- 
sophy, when  prose  composition  alone  was  the  fashion. 
It  was  near  the  close  of  the  fourth  century  that  Chii-yuen 
flourished.  The  founders  of  two  great  religions  were 
contemporary  in  the  sixth  century  before  Christ,  that  is, 
Confucius   and    LautsY.      Philosophy  became  dignified 


POLYTHEISM  IN  CHINA  85 

and  majestic  through  the  saddening  effect  of  political 
disappointment  on  the  minds  of  these  two  men,  who  had 
fallen  on  evil  times,  and  whose  sense  of  sorrow  at  the 
triumph  of  evil  among  their  contemporaries  had  the 
effect  of  making  them  great.  This  was  followed  in 
China  by  literary  advance.  Writers  developed  new 
power.  Prose  composition  became  a  fine  art,  and  poetry 
was  cultivated  with  much  greater  success  than  before. 
In  the  hands  of  Chwangtsi'  and  Lyetsi*,  mythology 
based  on  profound  philosophy  assumed  an  attractive 
form.  Every  ancient  emperor  and  sage  who  had  be- 
come known  to  fame  was  credited  by  these  writers  with 
great  advance  in  ascetic  studies,  such  as  satisfy  the  Tauist 
philosophy.  They  were  followed  by  Chii-yuen  the  poet. 
Chii-yuen  is  not  so  full  of  mythology  as  Homer, 
because  the  Greeks  were  extremely  fond  of  mythology, 
and  Homer  had  consequently  embodied  in  his  poems 
an  immense  quantity  of  myths.  But  just  as  the  poems 
of  Homer  were  the  fullest  repository  of  the  mythology 
of  his  time  and,  at  the  same  time,  did  much  to  extend 
and  perpetuate  the  reign  of  mythology  over  the  fascinated 
minds  of  his  countrymen,  so  it  has  been  with  Chii-yuen. 
He  led  the  fashion  in  the  literary  use  of  Tauist  ideas, 
and  was  himself  the  founder  of  an  important  school  of 
poetry.  In  the  Han  dynasty  some  of  the  best  authors 
took  delight  in  following  him,  as  for  example  Pan-ku, 
both  in  his  mode  of  writing  poetry  and  in  his  use  of  the 
mythology  of  the  genii  and  the  fairy  islands.  Neither 
of  them  believed  that  such  beings  as  the  genii  existed, 
and  yet  they  wrote  as  if  they  did  ^ 

^  The  late  Marquis  d'Hervey  de  St.  Denys  published  an  elegant  French 
translation  of  the  Li-sau,  the  principal  poem  in  the  collection.     In  his  notes 


86  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

Chii-yuen  describes  the  sun  as  the  prince  of  the  east, 
and  he  does  so  in  a  poem  which  he  calls  by  this  name, 
Tung  kiiin  ^  *With  a  bound  he  comes  up  in  the  east, 
shining  on  our  balustrades  at  Fu-sang.'  He  calls  the 
first  of  his  nine  songs  '  the  eastern  emperor  Tai-yi.' 
*  On  a  lucky  day  and  a  favourable  hour  in  the  morning 
with  reverential  joy  I  go  out  to  sacrifice  to  the  eastern 
emperor.'  The  star  Tai-yi,  3067  i  of  Draco,  was  wor- 
shipped with  special  honour  in  those  times.  Fu-sang  is 
the  name  of  an  island  in  the  Eastern  Sea.  In  his  imagi- 
nary wanderings  on  the  mountain  Kwun-lun  he  arrives  at 
the  palace  of  spring,  the  abode  of  Fu-hi,  who  had  in  the 
poet's  time  become  the  green  emperor  of  the  east.  In 
a  journey  which  he  imagines  himself  to  take  in  company 
with  the  Sun,  he  says,  *  In  the  morning  I  let  go  my 
wheels  at  Tsang-wu  (in  the  modern  Kwangsi).  In  the 
evening  I  arrived  at  the  hanging  gardens  on  the  Kwun- 
lun  mountain.  I  wished  to  stop  a  while  before  the 
carved  gates.  But  the  Sun  every  instant  was  coming 
nearer  to  setting,  and  if  I  waited  I  must  stay  the  night. 

he  has  collected  much  information  on  the  mythology,  geography,  and 
history  of  the  poem,  and  supplied  historical  elucidations.  The  plants 
mentioned  in  these  poems  are  very  numerous. 

^  When  a  paper  containing  these  views  was  read  a  few  years  ago  at 
a  meeting  of  the  Peking  Missionary  Association,  Dr.  Martin  said  that  the 
nearest  resemblance  to  the  Chinese  poet  Chii-yuen  would  be  found  in  Ovid, 
because  he  was  banished  to  the  shores  of  the  Black  Sea,  and  sighed  at  the 
loss  of  the  pleasures  of  the  court,  as  Chii-yuen  did.  Perhaps,  however,  Ovid, 
though  he  had  the  same  melancholy  as  Chii-yuen,  had  not  so  much  of 
a  patriot's  zeal,  and  at  any  rate  he  did  not  commit  suicide.  Dr.  Martin  at 
the  same  time  gave  some  strong  reasons  for  regarding  Chii-yuen  as  a  true 
believer  in  Tauism.  But  then,  remarked  a  Chinese  friend  to  whom  I  men- 
tioned Dr.  Martin's  opinion,  Chii-yuen  would  have  ceased  to  sigh  for  office, 
and  would  have  been,  if  a  Tauist,  quite  contented  with  the  life  of  a  recluse. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  the  best  poet  with  whom  to  compare  Chii-yuen  is  Ovid* 


POLYTHEISM  IN  CHINA  87 

I  met  with  Hi  and  Ho,  ministers  of  the  emperor  Yau, 
and  by  him  charged  with  the  regulation  of  the  seasons. 
I  asked  them  to  stop  the  flight  of  the  hours.  I  then 
looked  at  the  mountain  Amtsi  (behind  which  the  sun 
sets),  and  asked  the  driver  of  the  Sun's  chariot  not  to 
press  forward.  The  way  was  long  with  many  windings. 
I  searched  everywhere  above  and  below  for  a  virtuous 
prince  whom  I  might  serve.  I  gave  my  horses  water  in 
the  fountain  of  completeness.  I  tied  up  the  reins  of  my 
chariot  to  the  leaning  mulberry  at  Fu-sang  (that  I  might 
rest  for  the  night).  I  tore  a  branch  from  the  Nok  tree 
to  brush  the  Sun  and  make  him  brighter.  (This  tree 
grows  at  the  extreme  west  of  the  Kwun-lun  mountain.) 
When  I  had  passed  a  little  time  at  ease  I  proceeded  on 
my  journey.  Before  me  was  Wang-shu,  the  moon's 
charioteer,  who  acted  as  my  herald.  Behind  me  the 
ruler  of  the  winds  urged  me  forward  swiftly.  The 
phoenix  was  attending  me  in  front  with  his  brilliant 
beauty.  The  ruler  of  thunder  gave  me  warnings  from 
behind.' 

From  this  extract  and  the  rest  of  the  poem,  if  looked 
at,  it  will  be  seen  that  there  was  in  China,  in  the  fourth 
century  before  Christ,  a  mythology  which  included  rulers 
of  the  wind  and  thunder,  a  mountain,  Kwun-lun,  where 
divine  persons  reside,  charioteers  of  the  sun  and  moon, 
a  porter  at  heaven's  gate,  a  daughter  of  Fu-hi,  who 
became  a  goddess  of  rivers,  and  a  sovereign  Ruler  in 
heaven  whom  the  poet  calls  Ti^.     In  introducing  the 

^  He  mentions  also  the  five  sovereigns,  in  the  east  Fu-hi,  in  the  south 
Yen-ti  or  Shen-nung,  in  the  west  Shau-hau,  son  of  Hwangti,  in  the  north 
Chwen-hii,  in  the  centre  Hwangti.  Their  colours  were  green,  red,  white, 
black,  and  yellow.  The  planets  were  Jupiter,  Mars,  Venus,  Mercury,  and 
Saturn. 


88  RELIGTOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

names  of  this  mythology  the  writer  gives  the  rein  freely 
to  his  imagination  in  describing  the  situation,  but  the 
names  themselves  are  derived  from  earlier  sources,  and 
as  to  the  writer  who  first  employed  them  we  are  left  in 
uncertainty. 

The  Confucianists  do  not  allow  that  the  poet  of  the 
dragon  boats,  Chii-yuen,  was  in  any  proper  sense  a  Tauist. 
But  if  he  is  a  true  specimen  of  a  Confucianist,  then  it 
must  be  admitted  that  Confucianism  has  a  great  sympathy 
for  Tauism.  This  indeed  is  often  the  case.  Chii-yuen 
says  in  the  poem  Yuen-yeu,  or  *  distant  wandering,'  *  My 
ancestor  Kau-yang  (Chwen-hii)  is  too  far  away.  Whose 
path  then  shall  I  follow  ?  Again,  I  say,  the  four  seasons, 
how  quickly  they  pass  !  How  can  I  long  remain  here  ? 
The  emperor  Hien-yuen  (Hwangti)  I  cannot  take  hold 
of.  I  will  follow  Wang-ch*iau  the  immortal  man  and 
amuse  myself  as  he  did.* 

Wang-ch'iau  was  the  son  of  Cheu-ling  wang,  who  was 
emperor  from  B.C.  571  to  544.  He  was  contemporary 
with  Confucius.  He  met  with  a  teacher  of  the  immortal 
life  named  Fu-chieu  kung,  and  was  taken  away  by  him  to 
the  regions  of  the  immortals. 

The  poet  continues,  *  I  will  feed  like  him  upon  the  six 
kinds  of  air,  and  drink  the  breath  of  midnight.  I  will  sip 
the  breath  of  the  south  in  the  morning,  and  imbibe  the 
warm  red  air  of  the  dawn.  I  will  thus  secure  the  purity 
of  the  soul.  The  clean  uncontaminated  breath  will  enter, 
and  the  impure  defiling  breath  will  be  expelled.  Pushed 
on  by  the  warm  south  wind,  I  will  go  where  the  red  bird 
builds  his  nest.  There  I  lodge  for  a  night  with  Wang- 
ch'iau,  who  went  to  the  immortal  land.  From  him  also 
I  learn  to  distinguish  the  excelling  virtue  of  the  one 


POLYTHEISM  IN  CHINA  89 

primaeval  breath.  He  speaks,  and  this  is  what  he  says. 
The  ultimate  principle  of  truth  can  be  received,  but  not 
taught  to  others.  It  is  so  small  that  there  is  nothing 
within  it,  and  so  large  that  it  has  no  bound.  Confuse 
not  the  soul.  The  soul  will  act  spontaneously.  The  one 
primaeval  breath,  the  one  great  soul,  at  midnight  will 
prove  its  presence.  Wait  with  the  breast  emptied  of  all 
pride  and  evil  desire,  and  you  will  find  that  before  com- 
mencing any  activity  the  many  objects  of  activity  will 
be  gained  without  exertion.  This  is  the  gate  of  real 
power.' 

We  receive  this  lesson  in  Tauist  principles  from  the 
lips  of  a  Confucianist  poet.  This  quietism,  this  waiting 
for  the  soul  to  reveal  its  own  powers,  is  what  the  true 
Tauists  teach,  although  the  speaker  is  not  a  recognized 
adherent.  The  reputation  of  this  poet  is  that  of  literary 
power,  not  that  of  religious  leadership.  He  has  not  real 
faith  in  Tauism.  He  adds,  'Wang-ch*iau  was  silent. 
I  had  heard  his  valued  instructions,  and  was  on  the  way 
to  carry  them  into  effect,  when  suddenly  my  wanderings 
began  anew,  and  I  found  myself  with  the  winged  genii 
on  the  mountain  of  the  elixir  of  life.' 

It  should  be  remembered  that  when  the  doctrine  of 
Tau  is  rightly  apprehended,  a  man  begins  to  grow  feathers 
and  wings  upon  his  body.  This  notion,  occurring  in  a 
book  of  the  Chow  dynasty,  should  lead  us  to  look  back 
a  long  way  for  some  of  the  coarser  parts  of  Tauism,  for 
it  was  not  only  the  refined  doctrine  of  Lauts'f  that 
sprang  up  in  those  remote  times,  but  the  belief  in  its 
being  possible  that  the  body  may  become  immortal. 

The  poet  continues,  *  I  linger  in  the  old  land  where 
the  inhabitants  never  die.     I  wash  my  hair  in  the  morn- 


9b  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

ing  in  the  valley  of  light.  In  the  evening  I  dry  my  body 
on  the  leaning  trees  which  grow  on  the  border  of  the 
universe.  (In  the  text  Kieu  yang,  'the  nine  lights/) 
I  slake  my  thirst  with  the  minute  drops  of  the  splashing 
cascade,  and  my  food  is  the  pure  essence  of  the  topaz 
and  jade.  My  face  looks  fresh  and  youthful.  My 
spirits  grow  vigorous,  and  I  gain  a  strength  I  never  had 
before.' 

The  valley  of  light  here  spoken  of  has  the  ancient 
name  Yang-ku,  the  valley  in  the  east,  where  the  sun 
rises.  In  this  locality  there  are  trees  which  lean  on  one 
another.  Visitors  remain  nine  days  on  the  lower  branches 
and  one  day  on  the  upper.  But  another  account  says 
that  Kieu-yang  is  the  name  given  to  a  place  at  the 
edge  of  heaven  and  earth,  and  this  seems  the  preferable 
sense. 

Li-sau  and  the  other  poems  of  Chli-yuen  show  that 
poets  have  had  much  to  do  in  making  Tauist  ideas 
popular.  Political  disgrace  has  often  shut  off  the  avenues 
of  public  employment.  In  such  cases  it  was  a  tempting 
occupation  to  let  loose  the  poetic  imagination.  Imperial 
frowns  cannot  prevent  the  poet  from  pleasant  dreams. 

Another  ancient  book  ought  to  be  consulted.  It  is 
a  book  containing  much  folk-lore  of  the  China  of  two 
thousand  years  ago,  and  contains  therefore  Tauist  ele- 
ments. We  usually  regard  Lautsi*  as  the  founder  of 
Tauism  ;  but  it  was  merely  as  a  philosopher  that  he  was 
so.  There  was  a  large  admixture  of  folk-lore  with  the 
early  Tauist  philosophy.  The  popular  fancy  threw  a 
nimbus  of  mythic  glory  round  the  heads  of  Wang-ch'iau 
and  others  who  led  secluded  lives  and  were  imagined 
to  be  immortal.    When  Wang-ch*iau  disappeared,  he  said 


i 


POLYTHEISM  IN  CHINA 


91 


he  would  return  on  a  certain  day.  He  was  seen  on  that 
day  seated  on  a  stork. 

The  folk-lore  work  known  as  Shmi  Hat  King,  the 
Classic  of  the  Hills  and  Seas,  is  written  in  a  flowing 
style,  and  has  in  it  something  of  the  literary  power  of 
Tso  Ch'ieu-ming  and  Chii-yuen.  It  was  not  shut  up  in 
a  tomb,  but  permanently  maintained  itself  by  its  appeal 
to  the  prevailing  love  of  Tauist  literature  in  the  Han 
dynasty  and  by  the  charm  of  its  style.  It  speaks  of 
Kwun-lun  as  the  imperial  residence  of  the  Supreme 
Ruler.  As  such  this  mountain  corresponds  on  earth  to 
the  heavenly  palace  in  the  upper  world.  It  is  regarded 
as  the  earthly  abode  of  the  gods.  Its  special  ruler  is 
Lok-ngu,  with  a  body  and  claws  like  those  of  a  tiger, 
twelve  tails  and  a  man's  face.  The  Yellow  River  of 
China  has  its  source  in  this  mountain. 

The  Queen  of  the  West,  this  work  adds,  is  worshipped 
at  the  Jade  mountain,  350  It  to  the  west  of  Kwun-lun. 
Her  appearance  is  human,  but  she  has  a  panther's  tail, 
a  tiger's  teeth,  her  hair  in  disorder,  and  a  discordant 
voice.  She  presides  over  diseases^.  A  little  more  to 
the  west,  at  a  place  ^00  miles  distant,  another  ancient 
Chinese  emperor  is  worshipped.  He  is  known  as  the 
White  ruler,  or  Shau-hau. 

This  book,  in  speaking  of  China  proper,  gives  a  detailed 
account  of  mountains.  When  it  proceeds  to  tell  what 
is  beyond  the  seas  many  wild  things  are  said.  Yet  these 
have  their  importance,  as  indicating  what  was  then 
believed  by  the  Chinese.     In  some  countries  there  were 

^  Later  on,  in  the  twelfth  chapter,  she  is  described  as  leaning  on  a  table 
and  holding  a  sceptre.  To  the  south  of  her  in  the  picture  are  seen  three 
blue  birds,  who  obtain  food  for  her. 


92  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

men  with  three  heads ;  others  had  a  pole  piercing  their 
chests  and  coming  out  at  the  back.  Some  had  human 
faces,  wings  and  birds'  beaks  suitable  for  catching  fish. 
At  that  time  the  figure  supposed  to  belong  to  the  gods 
of  the  cardinal  points  may  be  judged  of  by  what  this 
book  says.  Keu-mang,  the  spirit  of  the  east,  had  a  bird's 
body  and  a  human  face.  He  rode  on  two  dragons.  He 
is  the  god  of  wood  and  of  the  spring  quarter. 

The  size  of  the  world  as  measured  by  order  of  the 
emperor  Yu  was  found  to  be  539,800  paces  from  east  to 
west.     Here  we  must  regard  the  pace  as  five  feet. 

This  book  finds  Kwun-lun  not  only  in  Central  Asia, 
but  also  beyond  the  sea  on  the  north  and  one  in  the 
northwest.  This  last  is  described  as  another  Kwun-lun. 
It  is  800  li  in  circuit  and  100,000  feet  high.  All  the 
gods  live  here  as  their  home.  The  Red  water  has  to  be 
passed  to  reach  it.  Its  steep  sides  are  precipitous,  and 
those  that  have  both  love  and  great  ability  can  climb  to 
the  palaces  of  the  immortals.  In  the  picture  which  was 
before  the  writer  was  seen  a  beast  of  large  size  like  a 
tiger  with  nine  heads.  Each  of  them  had  a  human  face 
and  they  were  facing  the  east.  The  beast  was  represented 
as  standing  on  the  mountain  Kwun-lun  ^ 

It  was  the  S'i  Kti  Tsiuen  Shu,  an  elaborate  critical 
work  of  last  century,  which  first  directed  my  attention 
to  the  point  that  the  original  author  of  the  Shan 
Hai  King  had  pictures  before  him  while  describing 
mythological  personages  and  animals^.     It  is  certainly 

^  Shan  Hai  King,  chapter  xi.  par.  16. 

'^  The  Si  K'u  Tsiuen  Shu  derives  this  idea  from  Chu-hi  and  two  other 
authors,  of  whom  one  is  Wang  Ying-lin,  editor  of  and  commentator  on  the 
Santsi  King,  Three  Character  Classic. 


POLYTHEISM  IN  CHINA 


93 


interesting  to  find  accounts  taken  from  actual  pictures 
in  colours  by  this  unknown  author  in  the  period  B.C. 
400  to  300.  We  may  suppose  these  pictures  to  have 
been  brought  by  sea  from  Western  Asia  to  China 
by  the  trading  vessels  at  that  time  visiting  Cochin 
China. 

At  a  period  not  much  later  we  learn  from  Pan-ku's 
poems  on  the  eastern  and  western  capitals  that  Han 
Wu-ti  constructed  a  palace  in  which  expressly  to  repre- 
sent the  gods  and  genii ;  and  here  were  instituted  sacri- 
fices to  them,  so  that  he  might  have  the  satisfaction  of 
witnessing  their  actual  presence.  In  this  new  palace, 
called  Kan  Tsiuen  Kung,  '  palace  of  the  sweet  fountain/ 
a  platform  was  built,  and  here  were  to  be  seen  paintings 
of  the  various  gods  and  spirits  of  heaven  and  earth  and 
of  the  star  T*ai-yi  ^. 

In  certain  sacrificial  chapels  built  of  stone,  near  Tsi- 
nan  fu  in  Shantung,  carvings  descriptive  of  objects 
belonging  to  the  old  Tauist  mythology  have  been 
recently  found.  They  are  represented  in  the  work 
called  Kin  Shi  So.  These  pictures  contain  examples 
of  the  animals  and  personages  which  then  figured  in 
the  Tauist  mythology.  These  wood-cuts  representing 
ancient  carvings  are  very  instructive,  as  genuine  examples 
of  ancient  Chinese  art,  and  afford  a  tolerably  exact 
representation  of  the  ornaments  anciently  found  in 
palaces  and  temples  in  China  as  in  Western  Asia.  The 
chambers  of  imagery,  of  which  Ezekiel  speaks,  were  not 
only  to  be  then  found  in  Assyria  and  Chaldea,  but  in 

*  Li  Shau-weng  is  in  Pan-k'u's  history  stated  to  have  memorialised  the 
emperor  to  the  effect  that  if  he  wished  the  gods  to  come,  the  apparel  worn 
in  the  palace  must  be  like  that  of  the  gods  and  genii. 


94  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

countries   farther   east,    and,   as   we  learn  from   these 
engravings,  in  China  as  one  among  them. 

One  cave  is  at  the  city  Fei-ch'eng  hien,  at  a  distance 
of  60  li  north  of  the  city.  The  sculptures  date  from  the 
second  century.  The  date  on  the  monuments  is  A.D.  499. 
In  the  third  carving  are  represented  two  persons  with 
holes  pierced  through  their  chests  and  backs.  A  pole  is 
placed  in  this  hole,  and  is  carried  by  two  bearers.  The 
two  persons  are  ambassadors  from  this  country,  which 
was  situated  in  South-eastern  China.  In  the  fifth 
engraving  there  is  a  representation  of  the  intended 
search  for  the  nine  tripods  of  the  Chow  empire,  lost 
in  the  river  Sze.  The  emperor  Ts'in-sh'f  Hwang 
ordered  them  to  be  raised,  and  here  is  a  representation 
of  the  way  in  which  that  attempt  was  made,  and  failed. 

Another  and  more  extended  series  of  sculptures  is 
found  at  Kia-siang  hien,  in  the  department  of  Tsi-ning, 
at  a  spot  24  li  south  of  the  hien  city.  The  god  of 
thunder  is  borne  upon  clouds  on  a  car.  To  beat  his 
drums  he  holds  in  each  hand  a  mallet.  He  has  a  human 
face  and  figure.  His  costume  is  that  of  China  at  the 
period  of  the  sculpture.  Six  youthful  demons  draw  the 
car.  The  lord  of  wind  behind  blows  out  a  blast  from 
his  mouth.  Forked  lightnings  appear  before  and  behind 
the  god,  administered  by  a  demon,  who  with  the  help 
of  a  funnel  pours  the  instrument  of  punishment  from 
a  vessel  into  one  of  the  upright  drums  affixed  to  the 
car.  In  front  are  two  demons  holding  bottles  which 
may  contain  a  supply  of  rain.  Two  others  hold  chisel 
and  mallet,  one  of  them  is  killing  a  prostrate  criminal 
by  striking  the  chisel  into  his  neck.  Round  him  is 
a  rainbow,  which  is  represented  as  a  dragon  with  two 


POLYTHEISM  IN  CHINA  95 

heads,  each  of  which  touches  the  ground.  The  bands 
of  colour  in  the  bow  form  a  triple  row  of  scales  in  the 
dragon's  body.  A  female  demon  lies  upon  the  bow 
holding  a  long  whip  of  lightning  (tien-f  se)  in  her  left 
hand,  and  an  inverted  bottle  from  which  she  has  poured 
rain  in  her  right.  The  bottle  she  seems  to  be  offering 
to  the  other  demon,  who  is  armed  with  chisel  and  mallet, 
in  readiness  for  action.  Doubtless  he  will  fill  it  with 
more  rain,  and  when  the  thunder  cortege  reaches  the 
spot  where  judgment  has  again  to  be  administered,  the 
replenished  bottle  will  first  discharge  its  contents  as 
a  thunder  shower,  and  then  the  demon  will  descend  by 
the  rainbow  to  complete  the  execution  of  justice  on  the 
victim  by  the  use  of  his  chisel  and  mallet.  The  wife 
and  son  of  the  victim  who  is  already  struck,  are  seen 
near  him  with  streaming  hair  and  uplifted  hands,  over- 
come with  consternation. 

Among  the  Kia-siang  hien  sculptures  another  very 
interesting  group  is  that  of  the  Great  Bear  god.  He  is 
seated  in  royal  costume  on  a  dais  in  the  quadrangle  of 
the  Bear.  He  wears  a  broad-sleeved  robe,  which  crosses 
diagonally  at  the  neck.  The  two  streamers  on  his  felt 
bonnet  indicate  royal  rank.  The  bonnet  consists  of 
skull-cap,  back,  and  flat-topped  crown.  He  looks  forward 
at  four  suppliants,  two  kneeling  and  two  standing,  and 
all  of  them  holding  their  hands  in  praying  attitude. 
The  artist  has  placed  three  of  them  within  the  bow 
formed  by  five  of  the  seven  stars.  The  fourth  kneels 
just  under  the  seventh  star  Benetnasch  behind  the 
others.  Three  officers  of  state  stand  behind  the  god 
each  holding  a  baton.  Just  above  the  sixth  star  is 
another  called  Chau-yau, '  the  Beckoner/  Beta  Bootes. 


96  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

It  is  held  in  the  right  hand  of  a  winged  man  suspended 
in  the  air. 

Chinese  polytheism  had  become  what  is  here  repre- 
sented in  the  second  century  of  the  Christian  era,  when 
the  temple  sculptures  just  described  were  carved.  The 
art  is  of  foreign  introduction.  The  mythology  is  in 
agreement  with  that  of  the  poems  of  Chii-yuen.  With- 
out the  pictorial  art  of  Western  Asia,  China  could  scarcely 
have  elaborated  her  mythology  with  such  minuteness 
of  detail.  Religion  is  here  aided  by  art.  These  repre- 
sentations are  an  attempt  to  repeat  with  the  chisel  what 
Chii-yuen  had  pictured  in  his  poetry.  Many  Han 
dynasty  authors  of  that  time  also  delineated  in  poetry 
mythological  conceptions  of  a  similar  kind.  The  poetry 
has  been  preserved.  The  sculptures  were  covered  from 
view  under  a  mass  of  debris  till  early  in  this  century. 
This  mythology  was  a  native  growth  developed  from 
the  sun  and  star  worship  of  earlier  ages. 

The  process  was  something  like  this.  If  there  be 
divinity  on  high,  men  reasoned,  there  is  divinity  every- 
where. They  made  a  god  for  the  trees,  a  god  for  fire, 
a  god  for  earth,  and  a  god  for  water.  The  Persians 
worked  out  their  mythology  in  this  way,  and  the  Chinese 
followed  their  example.  The  Persians  made  Mithras 
god  of  the  sun.  The  Indians  followed  them,  and  later 
the  Chinese.  The  sun  in  the  Mongol  system  of  ideas  ^ 
is  the  mother  of  the  moon,  because  it  is  the  cause  of  the 
changes  of  the  moon.  It  is  perhaps  on  this  account 
that  the  sun  is  feminine  in  the  German  language.  The 
development  of  the  feminine  in  language  is  plainly  con- 
nected with  mythology.     If  the  account  of  what  took 

'  Banzaroff. 


POLYTHEISM  IN  CHINA  97 

place,  as  I  now  give  it,  is  correct,  the  history  of  the  intro- 
duction of  gender  into  language  is  likely  to  yield  itself 
up  to  research. 

The  results  of  this  inquiry  into  Chinese  mythology 
are: — 

(i)  That  in  the  classics  there  is  very  little  of  it,  and 
that  probably  in  the  age  of  the  classics  it  scarcely 
existed  at  all. 

(2)  In  the  Tso  chwen,  a  historical  work  of  the  time 
B.  c.  460,  there  are  allusions  to  the  god  of  the  west  and 
of  the  east,  Pe  ti  *  white  god,'  Ching  ti  '  green  god,'  as 
introduced  in  North-west  China. 

(3)  At  the  same  period  the  Tauist  mythology  was 
growing  up  aided  by  two  Tauist  philosophers. 

(4)  The  stellar  mythology  was  also  extending  at  the 
same  period,  and  was  pushing  itself  into  poetry.  All 
these  seem  to  have  come  from  the  West  to  China. 

(5)  With  the  preceding  as  a  beginning  the  Tauists 
proceeded  to  work  out  their  own  mythology,  taking  the 
Buddhist  scheme  of  a  hierarchy  as  a  model. 

In  modern  times  the  three  religions  have  become 
friendly,  and  mutual  toleration  is  the  principle  on  which 
they  coexist.  This  has  led  to  political  quiet,  and  a  great 
deal  of  indifference  and  scepticism.  The  scholar,  while 
he  pities  the  popular  credulity^  says,  *  The  gods  exist  for 
those  who  believe  in  them.  They  do  not  exist  for  those 
who  do  not  believe  in  them.' 

The  worship  of  animals  occurs  in  modern  days.  As 
in  Egypt  zoological  mythology  followed  a  more  refined 
conception  of  God,  so  it  has  been  in  China.  The  original 
monotheism  has  been  metamorphosed  into  animal  wor- 
ship.   First  the  philosopher  Chwangts'f  mixed  philosophy 

G 


98  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

with  the  metempsychosis.  Then  later  the  fox,  the  weasel, 
and  some  other  animals  have  come  to  be  looked  on  by 
the  people  as  possessing  a  divine  power  of  transforma- 
tion, and  as  having  an  influence  on  man,  for  the  most 
part  malign. 

Star-worship  is  dead,  and  has  been  dead  for  many 
centuries.  The  Buddhists  try  to  keep  up  the  worship  of 
the  goddess  of  the  Seven  Stars,  but  not  very  success- 
fully. Divination  is  no  longer  believed  in  by  the  ruling 
class.  The  mythology  of  the  poets  of  two  thousand  years 
ago  has  died  away,  leaving  little  trace  in  the  minds  of 
the  people.  A  zoological  mythology  has  taken  the  place 
of  these  older  superstitions.  The  toad,  the  snake,  the 
weasel,  and  especially  the  fox,  are  in  the  northern  pro- 
vinces much  worshipped.  The  people  are  occupied  with 
agriculture  and  trade  to  such  an  extent  that  they  have 
lost  sight  of  the  higher  religious  ideas.  They  worship 
those  animals  which  would,  if  angry,  injure  their  crops  or 
do  them  harm  on  a  journey.  The  transformation  of  foxes 
into  men,  and  men  into  foxes,  is  to  the  modern  Chinese 
thinker  a  subject  of  deep  interest.  The  book  called 
Liau  chai  contains  many  fox  stories,  and  is  much  read. 
The  Hindu  doctrine  of  metempsychosis  has  at  this 
late  date  produced  in  China  this  singular  and  disap- 
pointing result.  But  the  normal  worship  of  the  country 
is  still,  as  it  always  was,  sacrificing  to  ancestors. 


{ 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  MORAL   IDEAS   OF   THE    CHINESE 

Confucian  literature,  from  first  to  last,  has  held  the 
opinion  that  the  sense  of  right  and  wrong,  and  that 
inner  voice  which  calls  on  men  to  be  benevolent,  just, 
loyal  to  duty,  chaste  and  frugal,  are  directly  bestowed 
by  heaven  upon  mankind.  To  the  Chinese  conscious- 
ness, heaven  or  God  is  always  on  virtue's  side  in  creating, 
watching,  judging,  rewarding,  and  punishing.  Confucian- 
ism holds  that  man  came  from  God,  and  in  Chinese 
philosophical  writers  human  nature  is  on  this  account 
represented  as  good.  The  Christian  doctrine  of  original 
sin  is  a  stumbling-block  till  it  is  explained  in  Butler's 
way,  and  then  the  Confucianist  objection  ceases. 

Such  being  the  Chinese  view,  we  are  compelled  to  ask 
whether  this  clear  and  unhesitating  presentation  of  the 
moral  question  is  not  due  to  original  revelation  in  the 
lands  from  which  the  Chinese  came.  To  this  the  answer 
should  be  in  the  affirmative.  The  Chinese  believe  that 
man  as  a  whole  is  the  son  of  God,  and  in  particular  that 
the  human  conscience  and  moral  sense  are  a  gift  from 
God,  because  their  ancestors  were  taught  this  by  their 
religious  instructors  of  the  primaeval  period  before  they 
arrived  in  China. 

G  2 


lOO  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

In  the  earliest  records  of  the  Chinese  there  is  the  same 
clearness  in  moral  distinctions,  and  there  are  the  same 
virtues  which  appear  later.  The  books  containing  them 
are  fairly  worthy  of  our  trust,  and  there  is  no  sufficient 
reason  for  rejecting  the  literary  chronology  of  Chinese 
scholars.  During  the  present  dynasty  they  have  shown 
a  spirit  of  scholarly  research  which  does  them  the 
greatest  credit.  In  this  age,  aided  by  the  multiplication 
of  printed  books,  they  have  studied  ancient  books  care- 
fully, and  weighed  evidence  on  one  side  and  on  the 
other  with  reference  to  doubtful  claims,  with  great 
deliberation.  Last  century,  and  in  the  century  before, 
much  was  done  in  editing  and  criticizing  texts.  They 
still  hold  to  the  genuineness  of  the  early  books.  Foreign 
scholars  in  China  have  shown  signs  of  doubt  in  regard 
to  the  early  books.  Some  have  suggested  that  they  do 
not  long  antedate  Confucius.  But  the  testimony  of  a 
good  half  of  the  foreign  students  of  Chinese  is  still  in 
favour  of  their  genuineness. 

If  the  early  parts  of  the  Sim  King  are  genuine,  we 
have  trustworthy  testimony  by  contemporary  writers  to 
Chinese  morals  for  2,300  years  before  Christ.  Among 
the  proofs  of  genuineness  are  the  two  following.  The 
emperor  Tau  gave  both  his  daughters  to  one  husband, 
who  was  to  succeed  him  as  emperor.  The  object  of 
the  father  was  to  see  how  the  son-in-law  would  behave 
at  the  head  of  his  family.  If  he  succeeded  in  this,  he 
would  succeed  in  governing  the  state.  There  is  another, 
and  only  another,  instance  of  sisters  marrying  one  hus- 
band, and  it  took  place  a  few  centuries  before  Christ ; 
then  the  custom  ceased.  Another  proof  of  genuineness 
is  in  the  fact  that  the  titles  of  officers  of  government 


J 


MORAL  IDEAS  OF  THE    CHINESE  lOI 

are  different  from  what  they  were  afterwards.  There  is 
also  a  proof  of  a  philological  kind.  The  '  departing ' 
tone  or  accent  grew  up  in  the  period  from  B.C.  ^oo  to 
A.D.  500,  while  the  'rising'  tone  grew  up  in  the  period 
B.C.  1700  to  B.C.  300.  In  the  rhymes  of  the  first  part 
of  the  Shu  King  the  rising  tone  was  not  regarded. 
There  were  no  tones  then.  Later  on  there  were,  as  the 
rhymes  prove,  three  distinctions  of  tone.  There  is  poetry 
written  before  there  was  a  rising  tone.  There  is  poetry 
written  when  there  was  a  rising  tone.  There  is  also 
poetry  written  when  there  were  even  tone,  rising  tone, 
and  falling  tone.  This  is  an  auxiliary  proof  of  the 
genuineness  and  antiquity  of  the  documents  containing 
the  rhymes  which  have  no  tone  distinctions.  To  these 
proofs  may  be  added  the  astronomical  evidence.  The 
positions  occupied  by  the  stars  of  the  zodiac  of  twenty- 
eight  are  what  they  should  be  if  we  recognize  the  annual 
correction  required  for  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes. 
The  documents  recording  the  places  of  the  stars  ought 
then  to  be  received  as  genuine.  The  authority  of  the 
late  Professor  Pritchard  of  Oxford  and  Professor  Russell 
of  Pekin  favour  this  view. 

Assuming  on  these  grounds  the  genuineness  of  the 
old  documents  in  China,  we  may  proceed  to  the  study 
of  morals  in  the  third  millennium  before  Christ,  as  there 
presented  to  us.  The  age  of  Yau  and  Shun  is  an  age 
of  wise  government,  conducted  on  moral  principles. 
Benevolence  and  justice  were  the  rule  followed  by  these 
intelligent  monarchs.  They  made  the  happiness  of  the 
people  their  aim,  and  were  rewarded  with  high  fame 
through  all  succeeding  ages.  In  administration  they 
sought   to   attain   a   just   medium   between   too   great 


I03  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

indulgence  and  too  great  rigidity.  This  age  has  ever 
since  been  regarded  by  the  Chinese  as  a  golden  age  ; 
and  what  is  meant  by  'golden'  here  is  an  age  when 
moral  and  political  virtues  were  exhibited.  There  is 
an  air  of  reality  in  it.  The  people  suffer  by  inundations, 
and  the  sovereign  selects  officers  to  subdue  the  floods 
by  labour  directed  by  intelligence.  The  difficulties  in 
China  are  great,  on  account  of  the  nature  of  the  country. 
It  consists  very  much  of  broad  alluvial  tracts,  through 
which  great  rivers  flow.  These  great  rivers  come  from 
Tibet,  which  is  enormously  high,  being  upwards  of 
6,000  feet  above  sea  level.  The  rainfall  in  Tibet  and 
Mongolia  fills  the  rivers  three  times  in  the  year.  The 
task  of  the  government  is  to  prevent  destructive  inunda- 
tions at  these  three  periods  by  a  system  of  embank- 
ments. The  call  for  hydraulic  work  in  controlling  rivers 
leads  to  a  topographical  description  of  the  country;  and 
in  this  account  of  old  China  there  are  many  interesting 
details  of  the  nature  of  the  soil  and  the  character  of  the 
productions  in  each  province.  The  whole  wears  the 
aspect  of  reality.  The  astronomy  supports  the  ancient 
date  of  the  topographical  descriptions,  and  the  floods, 
which  gave  opportunity  for  the  administrative  task,  still 
occur,  and  must  have  occurred  in  those  ages.  Truly 
remarkable  it  is  to  find  in  China  a  government  which 
4,300  years  ago  developed  a  moral  and  political  ideal  of 
this  high  character.  The  reason  why  the  Chinese  were 
able  to  do  this  was  that  they  had  a  keen  moral  sense 
and  a  high  idea  of  duty,  aided  by  habits  of  industry  and 
a  good  physique. 

Now  it  is  nothing  new  in  the  history  of  ethics  to  say 
that  its  power  in  human  society  has  been  evenly  dis- 


MORAL  IDEAS  OF  THE    CHINESE 


103 


tributed  through  the  ages,  and  was  as  influential  in  the 
past  as  it  is  in  the  present  day.  But  it  may  be  well  to 
make  prominent  once  more  the  proof  of  this  by  an 
appeal  to  China.  So  long  ago  as  4,300  years  moral 
teaching  was  as  powerful  in  China  as  now.  It  then 
worked  out  striking  effects  on  governments,  by  being 
conjoined  with  wise  political  arrangement  and  admini- 
strative energy.  It  helped  to  make  monarchs  and  officers 
of  government  benevolent  and  just,  diligent  and  prudent, 
and  the  people  filial,  industrious,  and  frugal. 

Then  where  did  this  primaeval  morality  originate? 
What  is  the  reason  that  vice  and  erroneous  philosophy 
overcame  a  good  moral  theory  ?  Why  did  China  decline 
&o  much  in  morality  that  Confucius  despaired  of  his 
country  ?  We  are  forced  to  go  back  to  an  earlier  time 
for  the  origin  of  moral  ideas,  an  age  before  Chinese 
history  commences.  For  the  sources  of  Chinese  morality 
we  must  go  back  from  the  early  literature  to  the  lan- 
guage. The  language  was  earlier  than  the  writing,  and 
we  shall  find  the  moral  ideas  enshrined  in  the  language, 
the  creation  of  which,  as  in  the  case  of  every  nation, 
is  the  first  intellectual  task  undertaken  by  the  people. 
There  is  little  that  is  mythical  in  language  at  first.  The 
growth  of  language  is  chiefly  realistic  work;  myths 
come  later,  when  language  has  already  been  formed. 
In  language-making  by  each  of  the  races,  the  words 
are  old,  the  form  is  new,  and  the  grammar  is  slowly 
evolved.  But  the  grammars  are  found  in  any  language 
in  a  double  form,  as,  for  example,  m  French.  It  is  partly 
Latin  and  partly  self-developed.  The  words  are  partly 
Latin  and  partly  Celtic  and  Teutonic. 

When  we  proceed  to  examine  the  testimony  of  Chinese 


104  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

words,  especially  old  words,  to  the  early  prevalence  of 
moral  ideas,  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  the  words  are 
not  in  their  original  shape.  The  etymology  of  expres- 
sions belonging  to  primaeval  language,  to  the  mother 
tongue  of  all  the  languages,  ought  to  be  already  existing 
in  the  primaeval  language  itself.  What  we  can  do  in 
Chinese  is  to  approach  as  nearly  as  possible  to  that 
original  language.  In  opium  smoking,  after  a  few  weeks, 
a  craving  is  set  up.  This  is  called  yin,  a  '  drawing.' 
Since  the  alarming  and  senseless  spread  of  opium 
smoking,  this  word  has  been  applied  specially  to  express 
the  craving.  It  is  a  new  word,  derived  from  yin^  ^to 
draw.'  The  power  to  make  words  never  ceases.  When 
needed  a  word  is  made,  but  always  from  old  materials, 
as  in  this  instance. 

The  Chinese  being  the  oldest  type  of  language  that 
we  know,  the  etymology  of  all  the  moral  terms  is  im- 
portant. From  that  etymology  we  may  form  a  sensible 
approximation  to  the  primaeval  etymology.  Jen^ '  bene- 
volence,' is  softness,  and  so  alsoyV;/, '  man,'  may  be.  But 
nil,  '  woman,'  is  also  soft,  and  there  is  another  word  jeii, 
'  hard,'  and  this  may  better  perhaps  be  assigned  as  the 
etymon  of  the  word  for  man.  Ni,  '  just,'  is  a  verb  of 
cutting.  This  might  be  expected.  Loyalty  is  cutting 
through  the  middle,  that  is  the  heart.  Chung,  '  loyal,'  is 
from  fom,  and  '  heart '  is  tzm.  In  fact  chung,  '  loyalty,^ 
and  tim^ '  heart,'  are  the  same  word.  The  heart  means 
the  middle.  Writers  in  primeval  times  drew  a  stroke 
through  a  square,  bisecting  it,  and  this  is  an  instance  of 
ideography.  Economy,  moderation,  and  self-restraint 
are  expressed  by  tsit,  which  is  also  a  verb  of  cutting. 
Filial  piety  is  ^  imitation/  that  is  to  say  the  virtue,  filial 


MORAL  IDEAS  OF  THE    CHINESE  105 

piety,  received  its  name  from  the  son's  imitating  his 
father,  or  learning  from  him  with  docility.  So  it  is  with 
a  daughter.  The  virtue  is  as  much  feminine  as  mascu- 
line. Patience  is  endurance  ;  nai  and  nin  are  the  same, 
and  both  mean  '  continuance.'  *  True,'  '  truthfulness,' 
^  reality,''  *  fidelity,'  are  expressed  by  sin,  shi^  chen. 
These  are  one  word,  and  express  the  roundness  of  a 
pebble.  The  virtue  here  meant  is  *  steady,'  not  to  be 
disturbed.  Hardness  is  the  idea  expressed,  and  it  finds 
its  type  in  round  stones,  but  the  sound  is  that  of  grinding, 
and  is  older  still.  Among  the  vices,  crookedness,  crafti- 
ness are  expressed  by  a  word  '  to  cross,'  either  kiau  or 
cha,  or  by  such  a  word  as  'slippery,'  which  is  hwa.  Moral 
evil,  expressed  by  ok  for  tok^  is  '  hatred  of  me  '  or  '  op- 
posing me.'  With  the  lost  initial  restored,  it  is  dik^  to 
'  oppose.' 

The  intuition  of  right  and  wrong  expresses  itself  in 
Chinese  by  the  word  sht,  '  it  is,'  and  fei, '  it  is  not.'  '  It 
is  '  in  Chinese  means  '  it  is  right,'  and  '  it  is  not '  means 
'  it  is  wrong.'  Nothing  can  be  clearer,  than  that  simple 
pointing  first  in  one  direction  and  then  in  the  opposite 
suffices  for  the  expression  of  the  ideas  of  right  and  wrong. 
In  Europe  'right '  is  derived  from  the  right  hand.  In  old 
Chinese  '  it  is  right '  is  expressed  by  the  demonstrative, 
and  the  demonstrative  has  the  same  force  as  the  word 
'right'  with  us.  This  reminds  us  of  Kant's  doctrine 
that  intuition  teaches  the  fundamental  ideas  of  geometry, 
of  time  and  space,  and  of  morality.  But  the  origin  of 
the  demonstrative  pronoun  is  in  pointing  with  the  hand 
or  finger.  In  defining  what  is  right,  when  we  use 
a  gesture  to  express  what  we  mean,  we  use  an  unspoken 
demonstrative.     The   gesture  is  a  dumb  pronoun,  and 


I06  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

the  audible  pronoun  is  a  symbol  of  the  same  value 
as  the  gesture.  The  conception  of  right  and  wrong  is 
intuitional,  and  therefore  we  use  straightness  and  crooked- 
ness to  express  the  conception  in  clear  language. 

We  may  find  positive  proof  of  the  intuitional  know- 
ledge of  right  and  wrong  in  the  oldest  languages.  The 
moral  intuition  is  an  instinct,  as  appetite  is  an  instinct  to 
take  food,  and  is  found  in  the  oldest  words.  No  words 
are  older  than  the  demonstrative  pronouns,  because  they 
are  necessary  in  common  speech,  and  constitute  the 
wheels  on  which  the  vehicle  of  language  depends  for 
motive  power.  Physical  words  are  older  than  moral 
words  and  originate  them.  The  physical  words  which 
precede,  and  are  the  sources  of  moral  words,  are  the 
pronouns,  and  the  origin  of  the  pronouns  is  in  the  hand 
which  strikes  and  points.  The  hand  striking  originates 
a  sound  which  gives  phonetical  shape  to  the  pronoun, 
and  this  is  the  name  of  the  hand  also.  We  have  words 
for  the  hand,  for  the  act  of  striking,  for  the  act  of 
pointing,  and  for  the  demonstrative.  It  is  in  the  de- 
monstratives, which  are  the  outcome  of  this  process,  that 
the  moral  intuition  finds  its  expression.  As  the  appetite 
for  food  is  instinctive,  and  is  not  the  result  of  the  reason- 
ing of  sages  or  of  observations  in  sociology,  so  the  moral 
intuition  of  right  and  wrong  leads  at  once  to  the  adop- 
tion of  demonstrative  pronouns  in  order  to  find  expres- 
sion in  human  speech.  We  have  to  deal  with  the  facts 
of  human  life  as  exhibited  m  the  earliest  pronouns  we 
can  find.  The  question  to  be  decided  is.  Do  the  Chinese 
and  other  nations  in  their  vocabularies  show  an  imme- 
diate connexion  between  the  demonstratives  of  their 
oldest  literature  and  the  ideas  of  right  and  wrong?    If 


i 


MORAL  IDEAS   OF  THE    CHINESE  107 

SO,  we  may  fairly  conclude  that  men  did  not  at  first  wait 
to  make  utilitarian  observations  on  the  effect  of  actions 
in  order  to  learn  if  they  were  right  and  wrong,  but  made 
their  decisions  of  a  moral  nature  instinctively.  The  gift 
of  the  soul  from  God  was  accompanied  by  the  gift  of  the 
moral  sense.  This  leads  to  the  linguistic  evolution  of 
moral  distinctions.  There  is  such  an  evolution  un- 
doubtedly. For  in  whatever  language  we  make  search, 
the  principal  words  at  the  disposal  of  the  moral  sense 
are  closely  related  to  demonstratives  and  names  for  the 
hand.  In  English  'right '  is  a  hand  word,  while  'wrong' 
means  '  twisted.'  Right  is  evolved  by  the  law.  Wrong 
is  formed  by  the  imagination  when  comparing  physical 
and  moralphcnomena. 

The  sages  of  China,  having  unmetaphorical  words  for 
the  ideas  of  right  and  wrong,  naturally  had  exceptionally 
clear  views  on  morality. 

One  or  two  remarks  may  here  be  added  on  words  as 
witnesses  to  the  existence  of  a  moral  instinct.  If  the 
etymology  of  a  moral  term  is  strictly  demonstrative,  the 
sense  of  right  and  wrong  is  instinctive.  Fei  means  *  it  is 
not  so.'  Pi  is  '  that'  Fei  in  the  compound/^/  lui, ' bad 
sort  of  persons/  has  taken  an  adjective  sense  and  is  the 
same  with  our  '  bad.'  The  ordinary  negative/^/, '  not,'  is 
the  same  word.  The  hand  points  to  express  a  negative, 
or  to  indicate  the  demonstrative  sense.  It  is  then  ap- 
plied to  mark  moral  badness.  This  etymology  seems 
quite  certain. 

An  unpleasant  smell  originates  a  moral  term  in  corre- 
spondence with  it.  So  it  is  with  a  pleasant  fragrance. 
Some  words  for  hating  and  loving  take  origin  in  the 
same  way.    Moral  terms  connected  with  harmony  would 


I08  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

be  derived  from  sweet  and  well-according  sounds.  On 
the  contrary,  discordant  noises  are  used  to  describe 
discord  in  the  state  or  in  a  family.  The  eye  assists  in 
the  formation  of  moral  words.  For  example,  in  car- 
penters' work  evenness  and  unevenness  are  taught  by 
the  eye.  Words  expressing  justice  are  formed  in  this 
way.  We  may  see  a  carpenter  lifting  the  pieces  of  wood 
which  are  to  dovetail  together.  He  looks  sometimes 
with  one  eye,  and  sometimes  with  both,  and  very  care- 
fully, so  as  to  secure  a  perfectly  even  surface.  In  all 
such  adjustments  we  see  how  the  eye  had  a  share  in 
forming  certain  moral  words  with  the  meaning  ^justZ 
It  was  thus  that  kung  and  p'^ing  for  '  even  '  were  formed 
in  Chinese.  The  sound  is  that  of  collision,  but  the  sense 
is  that  of  careful  adjustment.  The  eye  cannot  ^\y^  the 
sound  to  words,  but  it  may  assist  in  giving  any  sense  it 
can  be  called  in  as  a  witness  for. 

We  must  always  bear  in  mind  that  Chinese  words 
are  taken  from  an  older  language,  and  that  their  ety- 
mology really  would  be  better  explained  in  the  earlier 
speech  from  which  the  Chinese  language  is  derived.  But 
in  the  absence  of  data  we  can  still,  fortunately,  trace  the 
origin  of  words,  moral  or  material,  in  Chinese,  with 
considerable  confidence,  because  of  the  great  age  of  the 
Chinese  type  of  language.  It  is  certainly  easier  to  dis- 
discover  the  physical  origin  of  moral  and  intellectual 
words  in  Chinese  than  in  a  Semitic  or  European  language. 
This  is  because  Chinese  is  still  monosyllabic  and  keeps 
close  to  Nature,  while  such  comparatively  new  forms  of 
speech  as  Hebrew  and  Greek  exhibit  windings  and 
modifications  of  great  complexity,  so  much  so  that 
many   grammatical   forms,   in   Greek   for    instance,   of 


MORAL  IDEAS  OF  THE   CHINESE 


109 


superfluous  nicety  in  meaning,  only  lived  a  short  time. 
In  explaining  the  physical  origin  of  moral  and,  indeed, 
of  many  other  terms,  there  is  no  language  where  a 
natural  and  reasonable  etymology  can  be  arrived  at 
more  readily  than  in  Chinese. 

In  all  cases  the  application  of  physical  circumstances 
to  moral  conditions  is  instinctive,  and  the  evidence  from 
language  is  thus  shown  to  be  in  favour  of  an  intuitional 
moral  sense. 

The  belief  in  one  supreme  God  favours  the  regular 
development  of  the  moral  ideas  in  man.  The  con- 
nexion of  moral  consciousness  with  monotheism  comes 
out  clearly  in  Chinese.  Moral  consciousness  means 
recognition  of  law,  and  law  prevails  over  men  so  as  to 
influence  their  conduct  much  more  powerfully  when  the 
thought  of  the  Sovereign  Ruler  is  present.  Consequently 
in  China,  where  heaven  has  always  in  the  thought  of  the 
people  had  the  personal  idea  more  or  less  prominent, 
the  conception  of  right  and  wrong  has  never  been  wanting 
in  clearness.  It  is  the  same  with  republicanism  as 
compared  with  imperialism.  A  personal  king  makes 
loyalty  clearer  to  the  mind  of  a  subject,  and  promulgation 
of  a  law  from  the  king  is  a  more  powerful  sanction  to 
certain  minds  in  a  nation  than  if  promulgated  by  repub- 
lican authority.  Monotheistic  sanction  is  much  more 
powerful  than  the  sanction  of  inferior  gods.  Ancient 
authors  are  continually,  when  speaking  of  Zeus,  in  the 
habit  of  picturing  him  as  the  one  Supreme  God.  0€os 
and  Zeus  are  often  interchangeable.  The  human  mind 
naturally  takes  refuge  in  monotheism,  when  in  a  reflec- 
tive stage,  even  in  Greece,  a  country  where  polytheism 
was  so  powerful,  and  the   gods  were  so  much  feared. 


no  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN   THE  FAR   EAST 

The  old  religion  of  China  being  monotheistic,  the  moral 
distinctions  are  found  to  be  clearly  laid  down.  When 
the  personality  of  God  is  obscured,  and  heaven  is  thought 
of  as  an  impersonal  power,  the  moral  sense  is  not  de- 
stroyed. It  is  still  operative  in  witnessing  to  right  and 
wrong.  It  is  the  same  with  us.  We  say,  Heaven  will 
defend  the  right,  but  we  prefer  to  say,  May  God  defend 
the  right.  The  appeal  to  heaven  has  a  powerful  moral 
effect  on  mankind  as  well  as  an  appeal  to  God.  The 
reason  is  that  heaven,  when  thus  appealed  to,^  is  thought 
of  as  sovereign,  almighty,  omniscient,  and  omnipresent, 
just  as  God  is.  The  thought  of  these  awful  attributes 
awakens  reverence  in  the  listener's  mind  to  a  degree 
unknown  to  polytheism. 

The  effect  of  monotheistic  faith  on  public  morality  is 
seen  in  the  ethical  purity  of  Chinese  literature.  Vice  is 
spoken  of  to  be  condemned,  and  history's  chief  ofifice  is 
to  reward  virtue  with  her  approval  and  to  shower  con- 
demnation on  the  guilty  and  disloyal.  They  have 
seized  on  a  very  true  and  important  conception  of  the 
historian's  duty.  The  historian  is  a  moral  teacher.  Just 
as  the  prophet  in  ancient  Israel  lashed  the  vices  of  the 
age  and  passed  a  favourable  judgement  on  every  pious 
prince,  the  Chinese  historian  who  undertakes  to  write 
a  narrative  of  events  in  a  defunct  dynasty  deals  out  un- 
sparing censure  on  conspicuous  criminals  and  rejoices  to 
invoke  admiration  on  the  loyal  and  the  filial. 

The  beautiful  moral  tone  of  early  Buddhism  speaks 
for  the  state  of  the  Hindu  mind.  The  moral  sense  was 
in  India  tenderly  susceptible  in  the  days  of  Shakyamuni. 
The  compassion  felt  for  deluded  men  by  the  founder  of 
Buddhism  was  exceedingly  remarkable.     But  it  was  not 


MORAL  IDEAS  OF  THE   CHINESE  IIT 

exactly  moral.  He  pitied  intellectual  delusion,  and  was 
himself  entangled  in  the  snare  of  atheism.  It  was 
philosophy  which  led  him  wrong.  Polytheism  had 
caused  the  Hindu  mind  to  wander  far  astray  in  the 
days  of  this  great  man.  The  clearness  of  view  of 
monotheistic  days  had  become  dimmed  by  delusive 
legends,  and  distorted  by  many-coloured  fancies.  Still 
the  moral  light  was  there,  as  it  was  in  Greece,  where  it  is 
the  chief  attraction  of  many  of  the  most  splendid 
passages  in  Homer  and  Sophocles.  From  whence  then 
did  the  moral  sense  clearly  displayed  in  Chinese,  in 
Hindu,  and  in  Greek  literature,  originate  ?  It  was 
not  an  invention  of  poets  and  historians.  Plutarch  did 
not  create  his  heroes.  He  simply  described  their  heroic 
deeds,  that  posterity  might  know  what  brave  men  had 
done  in  Greece  and  Rome.  The  moral  sentiments  which 
make  life  beautiful  and  nations  happy  came  by  inherit- 
ance from  an  earlier  age.  The  identity  of  moral  senti- 
ments in  countries  so  far  apart  as  Greece  and  China 
points  to  an  earlier  age  when  God  spoke  to  man  in 
the  Mesopotamian  plains,  and  inspired  patriarchs  gave 
instruction  to  their  fellow-countrymen  in  religion  and 
morality.  This  was  before  the  Hindus  and  Persians 
had  separated  from  the  Teutons  and  the  Greeks.  It  was 
in  what  we  may  call  antediluvian  times,  before  the  days 
of  Shem  and  Heber,  when  Semitic  and  Aryan  speech 
were  both  in  the  womb  of  the  future.  This  is  shown  by 
identity  of  moral  sentiment  and  monotheistic  belief. 
The  chronology  of  Ussher  is  no  guide  to  us  now  in 
determining  the  length  of  the  earlier  ages  in  the  history 
of  the  world.  Our  chronology  is  that  of  Egyptian  and 
Babylonian    antiquity.      Guided    by  these,  we  see  how 


112^  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

very  brief  are  the  records  in  the  early  chapters  of 
Genesis.  What  they  give  us  is  history  from  the  pens  of 
God-inspired  men  in  a  form  which  shows  us  that  there 
was  an  age  of  primaeval  revelation  when  morality  was 
taught  to  young  humanity. 

It  is  the  results  of  this  early  teaching  with  which  we 
meet  in  the  ethical  portions  of  the  Zendavesta,  the 
Vedas,  and  the  Chinese  classics.  These  works  were  all 
written  at  a  much  later  date,  but  the  important  matter 
is  that  they  speak  the  sentiments  of  the  nation  in  each 
case.  They  are  the  key  which  unlocks  the  door  to 
ancient  Persia,  India,  and  China.  As  we  read  them  we 
know  the  religious  and  moral  beliefs  and  opinions  of  the 
people  in  the  first  (Zendavesta  and  Chinese  classics), 
second  (Vedas  and  Chinese  classics),  and  third  (Chinese 
classics  and  Vedas)  millenniums  before  Christ.  Without 
a  common  basis  of  moral  instruction  in  the  first  age 
previous  to  the  separation  of  the  Semitic  and  Aryan 
families  from  the  common  stock,  the  identity  of  moral 
sentiments  would  scarcely  have  been  able  to  exist.  At 
least  it  would  not  exist  to  the  same  extent,  for  in  all 
ages  education  has  been  necessary  to  develop  the  moral 
intuitions  of  the  mind.  Where  the  moral  intuitions 
have  been  brightest  we  see  the  effects  in  literature,  and 
good  literature  has  been  produced  where  the  education 
of  the  young  was  seriously  undertaken.  As  in  a  nation, 
so  in  the  world  ;  it  was  early  moral  education  in  the  first 
ages  of  man's  life  in  Asia  that  sowed  the  seeds  of  the 
morality  of  which  the  vestiges  remain  in  the  early 
literature  of  Persia,  India,  China,  and  countries  further 
to  the  west. 

At  the  present  time  it  is  possible  in  Asiatic  countries 


MORAL  IDEAS  OF  THE   CHINESE 


113 


to  compare  the  moral  ideal  exhibited  in  contemporary 
social  life  with  the  moral  ideal  of  the  sacred  books  in 
each  nation.  That  there  should  be  deterioration  is 
inevitable. 

In  China  we  see  this  both  in  Tauism  and  Buddhism. 
Tauism  as  an  ascetic  system  has  tended  to  produce 
laxity  of  the  common  sense.  It  is  said  in  one  passage 
of  an  honoured  Tauist  book  that  the  Yellow  Emperor, 
the  favourite  hero  of  early  Tauists,  governed  the  empire 
so  successfully  that  the  people  became  united  in  heart 
and  mind.  If  they  did  not  weep  on  the  death  of  parents, 
society  did  not  blame  them.  Here  the  reader  who  has 
been  trained  as  a  Confucianist  is  conscious  of  a  shock 
to  his  moral  sense.  He  feels  that  it  is  unnatural  not  to 
weep  over  the  death  of  father  and  mother.  Ascetic 
thought  ought  not  to  obliterate  family  love  and  filial 
duty.  The  ascetic  must  be  wrong  in  his  principles. 
More  than  this,  the  condemnation  of  society  ought  to  be 
pronounced  on  such  men,  and  Tauism,  though  it  has 
obtained  a  certain  popularity  on  account  of  its  asceti- 
cism and  mysticism,  has  not  escaped  severe  censure  ;  for 
society  will  not  fail  to  condemn  any  relaxing  of  the 
bonds  of  moral  duty.  Tauism,  like  Buddhism,  holds  filial 
piety  with  no  firm  grasp,  and  it  is  the  special  merit 
of  Confucianism  to  elevate  this  virtue  and  maintain  it 
firmly  to  the  last.  For  filial  piety,  according  to  the 
opinion  of  Chinese  patriarchal  wisdom,  is  the  pin- 
nacle and 'glory  of  all  the  virtues.  Nor  has  Buddhism 
added  to  the  intensity  of  the  Chinese  moral  conscious- 
ness, nor  made  duty  present  itself  more  powerfully  to 
the  popular  mind.  This  is  seen  in  the  common  phrase, 
'  In  your  home  you  have  two  living  Buddhas.'      The 

H 


114  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

father  and  mother  are  referred  to  in  this  proverb.  It 
is  a  protest  against  Buddhist  asceticism.  The  higher 
duty  of  filial  piety  condemns  the  transference  of  honour 
to  Buddha.  From  the  first  the  moral  consciousness  of 
China  has  resisted  the  appeal  addressed  to  it  from  the 
lotus  throne,  urging  the  adoption  of  an  ascetic  life. 

Buddhism  inverts  the  moral  standard  of  right  and 

wrong,  and   elevates  compassion  in  the  place  of  duty., 

The  Confucianist  consciousness  observed  this,  and  has 

"been  a  consistent  opponent  from  the  first  to  the  Buddhist 

doctrine. 

The  consequence  is  that  in  the  modern  state  of  China 
morality  has  become  lax,  uncontrolled,  and  unsatisfac- 
tory. The  country  fell  an  easy  prey  to  opium  smoking. 
Foot-binding  spread  with  wonderful  rapidity  to  almost 
all  the  families.  The  one  vice  has  had  a  career  of  two 
centuries.  The  other  has  had  a  career  of  ten  or  eleven. 
Infanticide  has  grown  up  through  excess  of  population, 
and  through  the  habit  of  emigration  as  at  present  con- 
ducted. The  women  are  left  at  home  in  poverty  when 
men  go  abroad  to  seek  a  better  livelihood  than  they 
could  obtain  at  home,  or  settle  down  as  mechanics  in 
distant  cities.  This  causes  a  surplus  of  girls  in  the 
families  of  the  poor,  and  when  the  moral  sense  is  weak 
tends  to  spread  the  practice  of  infanticide. 

Note  A. 

That  part  of  the  moral  consciousness  which  consists  of  com- 
passion differs  from  that  other  portion  which  respects  duty. 
Buddhism  has  had  an  influence,  distinct  and  powerful,  on  the 
people  of  China  in  regard  to  compassion  and  gratitude.  This 
is  shown  in   the   Ching  tu  wen,  a  book  written  in  the  Sung 


MORAL  IDEAS  OF  THE   CHINESE  115 

dynasty,  which  was  contemporary  with  the  Norman  kings  of 
England.  In  its  appeals  to  the  Chinese  people  this  book  attains 
a  tone  of  deep  pathos  when  inculcating  the  duty  of  abstinence 
from  animal  food.  This  abstinence  is,  in  the  writer's  opinion, 
properly  grounded  on  compassion.  He  was  a  high  officer,  who 
submitted  to  the  tonsure  from  conviction,  and  devoted  his 
talents  as  a  scholar  to  the  inculcation  of  the  doctrines  of 
Buddhism. 

Note  B. 

The  languages  of  Europe  and  Asia  may  be  compared  in  the 
following  manner:  -^^vho^  is  something  false.  In  the  form 
pseudos,  s  is  an  insertion ;  peud  is  the  word,  os  being  noun 
suffix ;  but  this  is/alsus,  '  false.'  Pad  or  pud  are  the  true  root. 
In  Chinese  the  corresponding  word  is  put,  'not,'y^/,  *it  is  not.' 
In  Greek,  Latin,  and  Chinese  the  words  here  collected  are 
pronominal.     A  demonstrative  is  used  to  deny. 

Take  another  example,  a\r)6r]s,  *  true ' :  a  is  a  prefix,  X  stands 
for  d,  6  stands  for  /,  r]s  is  suffix.  But  in  Chinese  we  have  shih, 
'  true,'  '  real'  In  this  word  h  stands  for  a  final  /,  sh  stands  for 
zh  and  for  d  ultimately. 

So  it  is  all  through  the  vocabularies.  They  are  beyond 
contradiction  identical,  and  there  is  no  solid  reason  against 
the  recognition  of  the  identity  of  the  Chinese  vocabulary  with 
the  European  vocabulary. 


H    2 


CHAPTER  VII 

EARLY   SPREAD   OF   THE   BELIEF   IN    A   FUTURE    STATE 

The  doctrine  of  a  future  state  was  spread  very  early 
by  the  Persians  into  China,  Manchuria,  and  Japan. 
Again  and  again  in  the  progress  of  the  centuries  the 
Christian  Church  has  been  reminded  of  the  teaching  of 
Zoroaster  on  the  subject  of  final  judgement  and  an  abode 
of  joy  for  the  good  and  of  grief  for  the  wicked,  beyond 
the  present  life.  The  Persian  people  seized  with  eager- 
ness on  the  doctrine,  and  by  them  it  was  propagated  in 
countries  farther  east.  The  metempsychosis  crept  into 
India  by  land  routes  or  by  sea,  and  somewhere  near 
the  age  of  Solomon,  the  Phoenicians,  or  some  other 
Semitic  navigators,  must  be  regarded  as  having  nearly 
at  the  same  time  with  the  Persians  taught  the  Indians 
to  believe  in  a  future  life.  While  the  nation  of  the 
four  castes  was  learning  the  art  of  writing  from  Western 
teachers,  they  received  their  pictures  of  the  condition  of 
the  soul  in  the  future  state  with  curious  interest.  In 
consequence,  all  India  learned  to  believe  in  the  metem- 
psychosis. 

Among  Buddha's  early  opponents  in  the  cities  of 
India,  when  he  stood  up  to  preach,  were  the  fire  wor- 
shippers, and  this  fact  shows  that  Persian  propagandists 


EARLY  SPREAD   OF  BELIEF  IN  A   FUTURE  STATE    II7 

were  actively  engaged  in  his  time  in  spreading  their 
religion  in  India.  The  Buddhists  in  Afghanistan  and 
Cashmere,  about  the  time  of  Christ,  were  age  after  age 
in  close  contact  with  the  Persians.  Later  on  when  they 
advanced  to  Turkestan  they  were  in  the  very  home-land 
of  Zoroaster  and  of  the  Avesta.  The  deep  impression 
made  on  Buddhism  by  the  belief  in  a  future  state  on  the 
part  of  Semitic  navigators  and  Persian  teachers  or  magi 
is  thus  accounted  for. 

But  we  must  look  to  earlier  dates  and  to  more  distant 
countries,  if  we  would  understand  what  were  the  earlier 
results  of  the  teaching  of  Zoroaster  on  this  subject,  and 
of  the  more  ancient  Persians  before  he  wrote  the  Zend- 
avesta. 

The  faith  of  Buddhists  in  a  future  state  is  very  much 
more  real  than  some  persons  suppose,  who  imagine  that 
the  dogma  of  the  Nirvana  has  completely  neutralized 
the  metempsychosis.  It  ought  to  be  remembered  that 
the  Nirvana  is  simply  a  philosophical  expression  explain- 
ing away  the  future  state.  The  subtle  mind  of  ancient 
India  rejoiced  in  this  achievement.  But  reason  is  never 
so  strong  as  faith.  The  Nirvana  cannot  as  a  hope  ever 
compete  with  the  belief  in  the  continued  existence  of 
the  soul  in  the  hold  it  has  on  the  mind  of  man.  The 
Avesta  teaching  forced  its  way  into  the  doctrines  of  the 
northern  Buddhists.  In  both  we  find  the  teaching  of 
the  eternal  light,  of  a  paradise  in  the  heavens,  of  a  sub- 
terranean abode  of  torment,  and  of  a  Saviour.  I  have 
conversed  with  many  Chinese  Buddhists  on  the  Nirvana, 
and  it  is  my  impression  that  the  hair-splitting  logic  of 
the  Nirvana  teaching  has  not  shaken  in  them  the  soul's 
abiding  faith  in  continued  existence  beyond  death.     It 


Il8  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

is  equally  my  impression  that,  in  Europe  at  the  present 
time,  the  materialistic  philosophy  now  prevailing  will  not 
succeed  and  cannot  succeed  in  eradicating  from  mankind 
their  deep-seated  belief  in  the  soul's  immortality. 

I  now  proceed  to  say  what  the  Chinese  think  of  the 
human  soul  and  its  prospects  of  enjoying  future  happi- 
ness. The  knowledge  of  the  soul  must  as  a  rule  precede 
the  knowledge  of  the  future  state.  By  slow  degrees  men 
arrived  at  the  belief  in  the  soul  as  separate  from  the 
body,  and  when  this  point  had  been  reached  the  future 
state  became  natural  and  credible. 

Successive  waves  of  Western  knowledge  reached  China 
at  intervals.  When  great  empires  rose,  trade  was  favoured 
and  knowledge  reached  China  from  the  West.  The  old 
Babylonian  empire,  the  Assyrian  empire,  the  later  Baby- 
lonian empire  under  Nebuchadnezzar,  followed  by  the 
Persian  and  Greek  empires,  were  epochs  of  growth  in 
knowledge  among  the  Chinese. 

The  Chinese  had  at  first  a  belief  in  the  soul  such  as 
exists  in  ancestral  worship.  Later,  when  Tauism  grew 
into  prominence,  the  idea  of  the  soul  became  much 
more  distinct,  and  Buddhism  made  it  more  thoroughly 
popular. 

The  Chinese  idea  of  the  soul  is  peculiar.  Shen^  the 
word  for  the  soul,  is  not  mentioned  in  the  classics  except 
as  separate  from  the  body.  The  idea  kwei,  'demon,' 
'  ghost,'  when  spoken  of,  is  separate  from  the  body,  yet 
it  is  looked  on  as  having  proceeded  from  the  body,  and 
it  is  a  word  which  belongs  to  other  languages.  It  is  the 
same  word  as  ghost  in  our  own.  The  epithets  '  foreign 
devil '  and  *  son  of  a  demon '  are  now  applied  by  many 
of  the  Chinese  in  an  opprobrious  sense  to  any  foreigner. 


EARLY  SPREAD   OF  BELIEF  IN  A  FUTURE  STATE   I19 

The  same  word  kwei  is  used  in  Buddhistic  translations 
froni  Sanscrit  for  the  Pretas  of  Indian  myth,  unhappy 
beings  who  are  fattened  by  no  offerings  of  food  till  the 
Buddhists  compassionate  them,  and  present  them  with 
a  supply  in  the  autumn  of  each  year  on  a  special  feast 
day.  This  word  kwei  in  the  ancient  classics  is  used  to 
designate,  in  conjunction  with  sken,  certain  powerful 
beings  who  control  the  changing  phenomena  of  the 
natural  world.  Yet  it  is  not  to  be  credited  that  these 
two  words  kwei  and  sken  were  not  both  in  the  language 
all  through  the  classical  period  in  the  sense  of  soul. 
Etymologically  kwei  should  mean  'breath,'  and  sken 
also.  They  would  therefore  be  derivatives  from  words 
meaning  breath  in  the  age  before  the  invention  of  writing. 
Sken  is  sunis,  *  soul,'  in  Mongolian. 

When  the  complicated  thought  of  Western  countries 
forced  a  gate  of  entrance  to  China  about  the  Confucian 
period,  the  soul  began  to  be  much  spoken  of,  and  words 
for  the  soul  were  required.  Hwun  and  kwei,  p'ek  and 
shen,  tsing,  cfii,  and  ling,  seven  words  in  all,  came  into 
use.  Among  them,  for  example,  sken  was  employed 
by  writers  as  the  opposite  of  hing^  ^  the  body,'  for  the 
immaterial  nature  of  man. 

It  is  in  the  books  of  the  eighth  century  before  Christ 
that  the  soul  becomes  spoken  of  more  distinctly  than 
before,  and  the  conception  of  the  future  state  acquires 
freshness  and  force.  In  the  year  B.C.  ^21'^  a  certain 
duke  had  taken  an  oath  that  he  would  not  see  his  mother 
again  till  he  met  her  at  the  '  Yellow  Fountain.'  This  is 
a  phrase  used  for  death.  The  under-world  is  here 
referred  to,  and  the  phrase  has  remained  in  the  written 
^  Legge's  Classics,  vol.  v.  p.  6. 


T20  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

language  ever  since  as  a  name.  It  was  the  under-world 
of  which  we  read  in  Homer  and  in  Virgil.  The  duke  in 
the  Chinese  history  had  no  way  of  evading  the  fulfilment 
of  this  oath,  till  he  was  advised  to  cause  a  subterranean 
passage  to  be  made,  where  he  could  meet  his  mother  and 
still  keep  his  oath.  The  tunnel,  as  to  depth,  was  to  be 
dug  till  water  was  arrived  at.  The  mother,  when  she 
met  her  estranged  son  below  the  earth  in  the  cavern, 
sang,  '  Within  this  cavern  deep  our  joy  springs  up  like 
a  fountain.'  When  the  son  came  up  from  the  cavern  he 
sang,  '  Escaped  from  this  cavern  deep,  our  joy  flows  like 
a  river.'  The  courtier  who  brought  about  the  recon- 
ciliation of  mother  and  son  in  this  ingenious  way  is 
commended  highly  by  the  Confucianist  historian  for  the 
service  he  thus  rendered  to  filial  morality. 

This  is  as  far  as  the  Chinese  of  that  age  had  gone  in 
entertaining  the  idea  of  a  future  state.  The  story  of 
Adonis  appears  to  have  been  invented  in  honour  of  Ishtar, 
and  out  of  pity  for  the  prince  who  died  young,  having  been 
killed  by  a  wild  boar.  Venus  or  Ishtar  loved  the  prince, 
and,  as  we  read  in  Ezekiel  viii.  14,  the  worshippers  of  Ishtar 
wept  for  the  death  of  her  favourite  prince.  His  name  in 
Semitic  being  Tammuz,  meaning  *the  hidden  oneV  there 
is  a  truth  here  underlying  the  invented  story.  Venus 
sent  him  to  visit  Persephone,  or,  as  the  Assyrians  called 
her,  Ningkigal.  In  the  Japanese  legend  Izanami  is  the 
creating  goddess,-  and  Izanagi  the  creating  god.  Izanagi 
goes  down  into  Yomi,  the  Hades  of  the  Japanese  early 
religion.  In  different  countries  the  belief  in  an  under- 
world, where  the  souls  of  the  dead  reside,  assumes  forms 

^  lOTD,  bury,  conceal;  ^2i^.  yomi\  Chinese,  am  'dark*;  Mon.  tam^ 
hell. 


EARLY  SPREAD    OF  BELIEF  IN  A   FUTURE  STATE    121 

that  disagree  in  various  ways.  If  in  China  we  wish  to 
find  messengers  sent  down  to  Hades  to  witness  the 
judgments  passed  there  by  the  king  of  the  dead,  or 
to  rescue  some  beloved  relative  from  torture,  we  must 
go  to  Buddhism.  There  we  find  what  we  were  seeking. 
Chinese  Buddhists  of  the  Sung  dynasty  wrote  works  of 
fiction  to  relate  what  was  seen  on  these  visits  to  the 
invisible  world  ;  yet  at  an  earlier  period,  as  in  the  days  of 
Confucius,  the  idea  of  the  future  state  was  pushing  its 
way  into  China  through  the  door  which  was  then  open 
for  the  reception  of  foreign  art  and  astronomy,  foreign 
medicine  and  religious  usages. 

In  Japan  the  desire  of  the  people  to  receive  foreign 
teaching  was  stronger  than  it  was  among  the  people  of 
China.  At  the  present  time  the  same  thing  is  true  in 
regard  to  the  reception  of  Christianity.  The  Japanese 
increase  in  the  number  of  Christian  converts  every  year 
is  nearly  double  that  which  takes  place  in  China,  while 
China  has  ten  times  the  population  of  Japan,  and  the 
rapidity  with  which  Japan  is  accepting  Christianity  is 
therefore  nearly  twenty  times  as  great  as  the  rapidity 
with  which  China  is  accepting  it.  Japan  is  more  capable 
than  China  of  the  rapid  absorption  of  foreign  thought. 
In  this  way  I  would  account  for  the  close  resemblance 
to  Persian  views  which  exists  in  the  Japanese  legends 
having  regard  to  the  under-world.  But  the  Chinese, 
though  they  have  a  colder  nature  than  the  Japanese,  are 
geographically  nearer  to  Persia,  and  would  receive  Per- 
sian notions  in  advance.  This  is  the  reason  that  the 
date  when  the  Chinese  historian  makes  the  first  mention 
of  the  under-world  is  so  far  back  as  B.C.  721,  or  as  2,613 
years  ago.     At  that  time  the  Odyssey  had  probably  beea 


I!2:Z  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN   THE  FAR  EAST 

written  two  centuries.  At  that  time  also  in  thousands 
of  temples  in  Egypt  and  Western  Asia  the  future  state 
was  openly  promulgated  by  painting,  sculpture,  and  the 
oral  teaching  of  the  priests ;  and  in  the  mysteries  the 
future  state  would  be  taught  by  pictures,  such  as  we 
see  in  the  Illustrated  Book  of  the  Dead  by  Le  Page 
Renouf. 

The  future  state  is  implied  in  the  sacrifices  of  the 
Chinese.  Ancestral  worship  was  the  first  addition  made 
to  the  primaeval  monotheism,  and  the  first  institution 
which  teaches  a  future  state.  The  ancestors  are  always  in 
subordination  to  God,  and  the  fact  that  this  feature  in 
primaeval  religion  is  limited  to  China,  ancient  Rome,  and 
some  other  localities,  indicates  that  it  was  in  the  earlier 
ages  local  rather  than  universal.  It  is  different  with  the 
idea  of  one  supreme  God.  That  appears  to  be  universal. 
It  remained  distinct  to  the  national  consciousness  for 
many  ages  in  China,  Persia,  and  Western  Asia.  The 
Tartars,  Tibetans,  and  Japanese  allowed  the  thought 
of  God  to  fade  somewhat.  At  least  they  allowed  it 
through  mental  torpor  to  remain  combined  with  the 
idea  of  heaven. 

There  is  an  indication  here  that  in  religious  thought 
the  order  of  origination  was  first  the  idea  of  a  personal 
God,  secondly  of  law,  thirdly  of  honorific  terms,  such  as 
heaven,  to  represent  God  ;  lastly,  of  the  future  life.  This 
last  gained  intensity  from  the  need  which  was  felt  to 
ensure  the  carrying  out  of  just  retribution  on  the 
righteous  and  the  wicked,  and  thus,  if  there  be  any 
unevenness  in  the  good  and  evil  awarded  to  men  in  the 
present  life,  to  redress  the  balance  in  the  future  state. 
This  order  in  the  appearance  in  language  of  the  four 


EARLY  SPREAD   OF  BELIEF  IN  A   FUTURE  STATE   1 23 

ideas  here  referred  to  seems  to  be  demanded  by  the 
conditions. 

The  vividness  and  sadness  of  human  life  have 
a  powerful  effect  on  language.  A  shipwreck,  an  earth- 
quake, or  a  fire,  would  add  intensity  in  early  times  to 
the  meaning  of  words,  especially  to  those  of  a  religious 
kind.  Before  Chinese  was  a  language,  when  mankind 
still  spoke  to  each  other  in  their  earliest  idiom,  in  that 
far-off  age,  such  events  absorbing  public  attention  at 
the  time  when  language  was  being  formed,  would  cer- 
tainly have  a  share  in  word-making.  The  creative 
efficiency  of  man  in  making  language  is  in  direct 
proportion  to  the  vividness  of  his  impressions.  It  is 
the  most  vivid  impressions  that  are  best  recollected, 
and  words  that  are  associated  with  striking  events 
have  the  best  chance  of  securing  permanence  by  repe- 
tition. 

On  the  minds  of  early  men  the  destruction  of  life  in 
an  avalanche  of  rock  or  snow,  or  when  houses  are  carried 
away  by  river  floods,  causes  a  distinct  impression  of  the 
act  of  God.  An  earthquake  brings  God  before  the  mind 
with  unusual  distinctness  :  then  men  think  of  law  and 
retribution,  and  at  length  by  reflection,  retribution  in 
the  future  state.  God  appears  in  the  natural  world  as 
a  just  and  merciful  sovereign,  and  at  such  a  moment  it 
comes  to  the  soul  with  the  force  of  a  revelation  that 
God  is  a  just  and  merciful  sovereign  in  the  future  state 
also.  It  is  at  times  of  vivid  disaster  and  deep  emotion 
that  religious  words,  and  those  affecting  the  moral  sense 
and  virtuous  emotion,  take  the  most  intense  signification, 
and  have  permanence  assured  to  them  in  the  languages 
used  by  mankind.     It  is  just  here  that  the  divine  revela- 


124  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

tion  of  the  Christian  theologian  coalesces  with  the  dis- 
coveries of  natural  religion. 

Let  us  continue  to  follow  the  New  Testament,  the 
Samaritan  Codex,  and  the  Septuagint,  in  regarding  the 
Book  of  Genesis  as  prae-Mosaic  and  compiled  from  docu- 
ments in  the  age  of  Moses  under  his  direction.  Then 
the  tree  of  life  in  Paradise  is  a  revelation  of  the  future 
state  in  the  first  age.  That  is  the  position  which  be- 
lievers in  the  Christian  sacred  books  will  mostly  suppose 
they  ought  to  take.  If  we  place  the  teaching  of  the 
future  state  where  the  Book  of  Genesis  places  it,  it  is 
a  part  of  the  primaeval  revelation  of  God.  These  por- 
tions of  the  book  were,  with  other  portions,  translated 
from  Babylonian  documents.  The  archaeological  style 
of  the  Books  of  Moses  supports  this  view. 

We  can  then  satisfactorily  study  the  contemporaneous 
growth  of  the  speculations  of  mankind  on  the  future 
state.  The  early  ideas  of  the  Egyptians  were  derived 
from  Babylon,  and  among  those  ideas  the  belief  in 
a  future  state  was  singularly  prominent.  God  taught 
His  creature  man  the  existence  of  a  future  state  in  the 
earliest  ages.  Men  exercised  their  own  reason  on  the 
subject  and  gave  reins  to  their  own  fancy,  and  so  in  the 
various  countries  of  the  ancient  world  the  spread  of  the 
belief  in  a  future  state  proceeded  with  footsteps  slow, 
but  sure. 

The  sources  of  the  belief  of  a  future  state  was  twofold, 
natural  and  revealed. 

The  province  of  theology  cannot  and  ought  not  to  be 
separated  from  natural  religion.  Christian  theology 
based  on  revelation  treats  of  the  extension  of  natural 
religion  in  the  region  of  the  supernatural,  and  therefore 


EARLY  SPREAD   OF  BELIEF  IN  A   FUTURE  STATE    1 25 

theology  is  as  necessary  as  metaphysics  to  form  a  part 
in  the  circle  of  the  sciences  which  a  man  of  wide  culture 
should  know. 

The  idea  of  the  future  state  is  connected  specially 
with  death  and  its  attendant  circumstances.  The  words 
used  in  Chinese  for  death,  for  heaven  and  hell,  for  ghost, 
for  soul,  for  the  after  life,  for  burial,  for  sacrifices,  are 
all  worthy  of  attention.     Their  etymology  is  interesting. 

S'i,  '  die,'  means  '  ended.'  Mot,  '  to  destroy,'  '  to  dis- 
appear,' is  also  used  for  '  to  die.'  Mong  is  *to  disappear.' 
Shi  is  '  to  be  lost.'  Shang  and  sang  mean  death,  but  if 
analyzed  they  mean  to  be  wounded  or  injured  only. 
The  honorific  expressions  for  death  show  that  the 
Chinese,  however  sceptical  they  may  be  about  it,  will 
not  let  go  the  happy  hope  of  immortality  which  the 
Persians  and  Hindoos  taught  them.  To  die  is  to  go  on 
a  journey  among  the  immortals,  it  is  to  mount  the 
skies  on  a  stork,  or  it  is  to  mount  upward  and  become 
a  guest  with  God.  The  words  '  with  God  '  are  to  be 
understood,  though  not  expressed.  They  also  say  of  the 
newly  dead,  '  he  was  sick  and  passed  away.' 

Heaven  means  extension,  the  outstretched,  a  word 
made  with  the  help  of  the  outstretched  arms.  The 
Persian  word  Paradise  is  in  Chinese  the  '  heavenly  home.' 
Earth  is  formed  by  the  sound  of  the  foot  stepping  or 
stamping  on  the  ground.  Hell  is  the  earth-prison, 
a  Buddhist  term  to  express  the  Sanskrit  naraka.  Ytik, 
'  prison,'  is  probably  to  fasten  by  tying.  Kwei,  or 
'ghost,'  is  Ui,  'breath,'  which  in  dialects  is  called  y^W, 
pointing  to  a  lost  final  letter  /.  Shen,  '  the  soul,'  would 
be  anciently  dan,  and  would  early  receive  the  meaning 
to  stretch,  the  stretching  energy.      Hwun   is   a  cloud. 


126  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

Ling  is  the  influence  of  dropping,  the  efficacy  of  falling 
rain.  P'^ek  is  probably  \/^vx^,  and  seems  in  Chinese 
etymology  to  be  the  beating  of  the  heart,  taken  as  an 
indication  of  life.  When  the  heart-beat  ceases  the  soul 
has  fled.  The  Greeks  thought  the  butterfly  was  the 
truest  image  of  the  soul,  trembling,  hoping,  lingering, 
flying.  To  them  the  soul  was  a  butterfly,  and  the 
butterfly  a  soul.  But  this  is  too  poetical  to  be  a  real 
etymology.  Myths  do  not  give  a  true  etymology. 
Safe  etymology  is  realistic  rather  than  imaginative,  and 
we  must  recall  the  physical  conditions  of  the  age  much 
earlier  than  the  mythical  period  when  the  word  was 
made.  The  after  life  is  expressed  in  China  by  means  of 
the  language  of  the  metempsychosis.  '  After  life,'  or 
*  after  age,'  or  '  return  to  life,'  are  the  phrases  employed. 
They  are  in  contrast  with  the  '  former  life '  which  is  ch'ien 
sht  in  Chinese.  To  sacrifice  is  to  set  out  a  banquets 
Death  supposes  the  possibility  of  the  future  state,  when 
looked  at  through  Chinese  phraseology.  It  is  the  break- 
ing or  cutting  the  breath  of  life  three  inches  in  length. 
If  this  breath  can  be  saved  from  being  dissipated  in 
space,  life  may  be  continued  after  death.  Tauism  says 
you  may  lengthen  life  by  training  the  cki,  or  energetic 
vapour  of  life.  This  is  the  origin  of  the  expression 
known  as  '  internal  elixir,'  while  the  external  elixir  was 
cinnabar.  The  internal  elixir  was  of  a  spiritual  nature, 
and  was  in  fact  peaceful  meditation,  favoured  by  long 
sitting  on  a  round  mat,  like  that  of  a  Buddhist  hermit, 
by  extreme  temperance  in  diet,  and  especially  by  the 
avoidance  of  passion.  Let  there  be  no  violent  ebullition 
of  feeling,  and  life  will  be  lengthened. 

The  Tauist  aim  to  lengthen  life  grew  strong  after  the 


EARLY  SPREAD   OF  BELIEF  IN  A   FUTURE  STATE    127 

three  philosophers  Lau,  Chang,  and  Lye  had  written. 
A  philosophic  basis  was  laid,  and  their  ideas  were  built 
upon  it  as  a  foundation.  Lyetsf  had  spoken  specially  of 
the  islands  where  the  immortals  reside.  Such  stories  as 
he  records  stirred  in  the  mind  of  religionists  of  their 
school  strong  longings  for  such  longevity  as  the  inhabit- 
ants of  those  islands  enjoy.  Legends  began  to  grow  up 
near  Tai  shan,  and  this  became  the  centre  of  the  hope  of 
a  future  life ;  but  it  was  not  till  the  first  century  of  the 
Christian  era  that  the  clustering  of  legends  round  this 
mountain  bore  fruit.  The  deceased  statesman  Tsl  ch^an, 
of  the  Cheng  kingdom  in  Honan,  was  subsequently  repre- 
sented to  be  the  chief  administrator  in  the  appointment 
of  invisible  rulers  of  cities.  A  good  and  efficient  officer 
when  he  dies  has  assigned  to  him  a  post  over  some  city. 
This  duty  of  appointing  judges  is  believed  to  belong  to 
Tsif  ch*an,  because  in  the  history  ^  he  gives  an  account  of 
the  elevation  of  the  god  of  fire  to  his  post  by  the 
emperor  Yau's  edict.  This  was  a  posthumous  appoint- 
ment. It  is  in  this  way.  The  spirit  of  Orion  was  in 
possession  of  the  body  of  a  prince  in  Shansi,  and  the 
prince  was  dangerously  ill  in  consequence.  Tsi*  ch*an 
on  arriving  could  tell  him  the  cause  and  the  cure^  and 
understood  the  power  exercised  by  stars  in  controlling 
the  sound  condition  of  the  body  politic,  and  the  health 
of  the  body  of  princes.  Also  Tsi  ch*an  shows  himself  to 
have  been  a  believer  in  the  physical  philosophy  which 
a  century  later  Confucius  and  Mencius  avoided.  He 
speaks  in  the  tone  of  the  medical  books  of  the  time,  and 
expressions  like  the  'five  elements'  and  *six  vapours' 
used  by  him  convey  to  us  some  idea  of  his  philosophy 

^  Chinese  Classics,  vol.  v.  pp.  708,  709. 


12,S  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

and  of  the  opinions  common  in  his  day  among  his  contem- 
poraries. Such  was  his  idea  of  the  world  we  Hve  in,  that 
such  phrases  as  these  were  accepted  by  him  as  explain- 
ing in  a  satisfactory  way  all  cosmical  phenomena.  Con- 
sequently he  was  held  to  be  a  sage,  and  the  invisible 
world  was  placed  by  the  Tauists  under  his  control.  He 
makes  whom  he  pleases  magistrates  to  rule  the  dead 
belonging  to  every  city. 

It  may  be  seen  here  how  the  actual  world  is  embraced 
in  that  which  is  invisible,  and  how  the  future  state  of 
the  Tauists  is,  so  to  speak,  included  in  the  present  life. 
Yet  this  is  so  understood  that  there  is  another  region  to 
which  souls  go  after  this  life.  The  Tauists  think  they 
have  an  advantage  in  elevating  some  pure-minded  and 
humane  officer  to  the  position  of  unseen  magistrate.  It 
is  a  reward  of  virtue  which  in  their  country  is  greatly 
appreciated.  The  idea  of  the  future  state  is  in  China 
twisted  into  this  form,  and  as  the  neglected  state  of 
a  ghost  to  whom  no  sacrifices  are  offered  is  too  chilling 
and  sad  to  be  agreeable,  the  prospect  of  an  invisible  city 
magistracy  to  which  a  popular  hero  may  be  elevated  by 
the  ancient  statesman  Tsi  ch*an  is  extremely  pleasing  to 
not  a  few  who  hold  official  posts  in  China.  Even  if 
they  are  sceptical  (and  Confucius  taught  his  disciples  to 
be  sceptical  regarding  the  future  state),  the  idea  is  still 
agreeable  because  it  is  the  reward  of  a  genuine  popu- 
larity. The  people  round  the  temple  will  reverence  such 
men  as  gods.  The  officers  will  offer  them  worship,  and 
the  emperor  will  command  annual  sacrifices  to  be  pre- 
sented to  them  after  their  death. 

As  Ts'f  ch'an's  name  is  connected  with  these  ideas, 
and  as  he  understood  astrology  and  could  predict  the 


EARLY  SPREAD    OF  BELIEF  IN  A   FUTURSsTATF;/12() 

future  by  the  stars,  it  is  plain  that  this  class  of  ideas  is 
derived  from  Western  countries,  where  astrology  was 
believed  and  practised. 

From  what  has  been  said  it  appears  that  there  was  no 
happy  world  for  the  soul  beyond  death  in  the  oldest 
Chinese  opinion.  The  existence  of  paradises  is  a  Buddhist 
and  also  a  Tauist  doctrine,  and  does  not  occur  in  Chinese 
literature  before  the  Tauist  philosophers  began  to  write. 

Thus  we  are  brought  to  the  conclusion  that  for  i,6oo 
years  after  the  commencement  of  Chinese  literature, 
B.  C.  2300,  the  Chinese  were  probably  without  the  hope 
of  transference  at  death  to  a  happy  world  beyond  this. 
The  worship  of  ancestors  and  the  faith  which  it  teaches 
in  the  existence  of  the  soul  separate  from  the  body 
imparted  a  certain  satisfaction  to  survivors  during  this 
long  period.  Ancestors  were  believed  to  be  pleased 
with  the  worship  and  gifts  offered  to  them  by  their 
descendants,  and  their  residence  was  supposed  to  be 
near  or  in  the  ancestral  temple.  These  ideas  had 
a  remarkably  wide  influence  in  ancient  China,  because 
every  person  was  interested  in  maintaining  the  worship 
of  his  own  ancestors.  The  soul  was  breath,  and  might 
be  scattered  at  last  into  thin  particles.  After  Creusa 
had  prophesied  to  Eneas  her  husband,  in  his  flight  from 
Troy,  his  future  fortunes,  Virgil  says  (in  the  Second 
Book  of  the  Aeneid) : — 

'■  Tenuesque  secessit  in  auras 
Ter  conatus  ibi  collo  dare  brachia  circum : 
Ter  frustra  comprensa  manus  effugit  imago 
Par  levibus  vends,  volucrique  simillima  somno.' 

Virgil  thinks  of  a  ghost,  a  human  shape  without 
solidity.    The  Chinese  have  the  idea  of  ghosts,  but  when 

I 


130  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

they  trouble  a  house  by  haunting  it  they  are  not  visible. 
They  are  supposed  only  to  be  audible.  Ordinarily  it  is 
to  prevent  the  dissipation  of  the  breath  or  vapour  of 
which  the  soul  consists  that  the  filial  Chinese  son  or 
grandson  twice  a  year  presents  soothing  sacrifices. 
Ghosts  are  believed  to  hunger,  and  offerings  of  food  are 
regarded  as  very  acceptable.  The  actual  visibility  of 
a  ghost-like  form  is  rare.  It  occurs  in  poetry,  but  less 
often  in  common  life.  If  the  descendants  cease  to  sacri- 
fice, the  vapour  of  life  is  dissipated,  and  consciousness 
comes  to  an  end. 

In  consequence  the  retention  of  the  ancient  custom 
of  ancestral  sacrifices  becomes  very  important  to  the 
nation.  This  is  specially  true  in  regard  to  the  reigning 
dynasty.  The  sacrifices  are  carefully  performed  to  all 
generations  of  progenitors  as  far  back  as  to  the  grand- 
father of  the  first  reigning  emperor. 

The  residence  of  the  spirits  of  the  departed  is  accord- 
ing to  this  very  ancient  belief  supposed  to  be  near  the 
ancestral  temple.  Tablets  are  kept  there,  and  brought 
out  to  the  front  hall  on  the  days  of  sacrifice.  The  ghost 
remains  in  the  chapel  with  the  tablets  at  other  times. 
This  would  be  the  old  belief  before  the  spread  of  Tauism. 

If  there  was  any  more  clear  view  in  regard  to  the 
future  state,  we  do  not  know  it  from  the  classics. 

In  the  writings  of  Confucius  we  do  not  find  anything 
on  this  subject  more  definite  than  in  the  classics.  The 
cautious  tone  of  the  great  Chinese  sage  prevented  his 
uttering  distinct  statements  in  regard  to  the  dead.  The 
people  of  his  time  believed  more  in  the  future  state  than 
he  did.  But  he  performed  the  prescribed  sacrifices  and 
followed  closely  the  customs  of  antiquity.     He  believed, 


EARLY  SPREAD   OF  BELIEF  IN  A   FUTURE  STATE   13T 

therefore,  in  the  duty  of  sacrificing  to  ancestors,  and  he 
practised  the  duty  reverently.  He  worshipped,  he  tells 
us,  '  as  if  the  spirits  of  his  ancestors  were  present/  He 
inculcated  the  same  reverent  performance  of  the  cus- 
tomary worship  on  his  pupils.  He  must,  therefore,  be 
represented  as  a  believer  in  the  future  state,  so  far  as  it 
is  implied  by  the  worship  of  ancestors. 

In  the  How  Han  shu^  a  work  recording  Chinese 
history  from  about  the  year  A.  D.  i  to  A.  D.  :zoo,  the 
Tai  shan  worship  of  a  god  who  there  controls  the  state 
of  the  dead  is  mentioned.  At  death  souls  were  supposed 
to  go  to  that  mountain. 

So  it  is  said,  in  the  same  work,  of  the  Manchurians  of 
that  age,  that  at  death  their  souls  were  believed  to  go  to 
the  Red  mountain,  some  thousands  of  miles  north-west 
of  their  home  in  Liau-tung.  The  mountains  meant 
would  be  the  Altai  mountains,  near  which  then,  as  now, 
resided  Turkish  tribes,  who  would-  in  that  age  have  no 
religious  guides  so  zealous  as  the  Persians. 

This  view  of  the  future  state  in  Tartary,  then  held, 
shows  that  the  soul  was  believed  at  death  to  travel 
a  great  distance,  and  to  find  a  resting-place  on  some 
summit  of  a  high  chain  of  mountains.  The  same  tribe 
that  held  this  to  be  the  true  after-life  of  the  good,  also 
opened  the  doors  of  their  tents  to  the  east  to  welcome 
the  sun.  The  Mikado  in  Japan  and  the  emperor  in 
China  are  said  to  go  to  heaven  direct,  borne  by  the 
stork.     Inferior  persons  go  to  mountains. 

Such  was  the  faith  regarding  the  future  state  taught 
by  the  Persian  religionists  in  these  countries.  The  stars 
in  China  were  named  many  of  them  in  the  earliest  ages, 
but  many  more  have  names  of  which  there  is  no  record 

I  % 


132  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

till  about  B.C.  300  or  B.C.  500.  On  the  whole  the  new 
grouping  of  stars,  which  may  be  reasonably  supposed  to 
have  been  elaborated  about  that  time  or  earlier,  more 
probably  at  about  B.C.  800,  does  not  disagree  in  the  main 
with  the  view  of  the  future  state  of  the  Han  dynasty. 
But  in  state  documents  no  particular  star  is  mentioned 
as  the  paradise  to  which  a  deceased  monarch  ascends 
upborne  on  the  wings  of  the  bird  of  longevity. 

At  present  Buddhists  are  called  by  rich  persons  to 
read  liturgical  passages  from  their  books,  to  secure  the 
rescue  of  the  dead  from  hell  and  transfer  them  to  the 
western  paradise,  where  they  listen  to  the  teaching  of 
the  Buddha  of  boundless  light.  Here  occurs  the  Persian 
element  in  the  doctrine  of  the  future  state.  This  is  con- 
firmed by  the  Chinvad  bridge,  which  in  Buddhist  temples 
in  China  is  represented  in  stucco,  with  paradise  beyond 
on  a  mountain  ascent,  and  the  place  of  the  condemned 
below.  De  Groot's  new  work  on  China  shows  proof  of 
a  careful  study  of  Chinese  Buddhism,  and  he  holds  the 
same  view  of  the  infusion  of  Persian  views  into  Buddhism 
by  the  north-western  Buddhist  writers  after  the  Chris- 
tian era. 

In  Peking  there  is  a  temple  of  the  Tauists  where 
there  were  seven  years  ago  about  twenty  aged  pen- 
sioners. The  older  the  more  welcome,  is  the  rule.  One 
old  woman  or  old  man,  if  asked,  will  say  I  am  \\i, 
another  will  say  I  am  108,  or  104,  or  97.  It  is  con- 
sidered very  favourable  to  the  repute  of  the  monastery 
that  these  aged  people  should  be  there.  They  are  living 
proofs  of  the  power  of  the  Tauist  religion.  One  of  the 
modes  in  which  the  income  of  the  monastery  is  expended 
is  to  provide  these  almshouses  for  the  aged,  in  order  that 


EARLY  SPREAD   OF  BELIEF  IN  A   FUTURE  STATE    1 33 

it  may  be  shown  how  extraordinary  is  the  effect  of  the 
Tauist  virtues  in  procuring  long  life. 

The  Tauists  teach  a  very  definite  future  state  in  the 
arrangements  of  the  Tai  shan  temple.  It  is  called  the 
temple  of  the  Eastern  mountain,  or  simply  the  mountain 
temple.  In  this  temple  there  is  a  palpable  imitation  of 
the  Buddhist  future  state  in  the  representation  of  paradise 
and  of  hell. 

In  the  one  case  the  idea  has  sunk  into  that  of  longevity^ 
In  the  other  a  place  of  happiness  for  the  good  is  provided, 
together  with  a  separate  abode  for  the  workers  of  evil  in 
this  world. 

The  Buddhist  future  state  being  like  it,  the  Tauists 
must  have  borrowed  their  notions  on  this  point  from 
Buddhism.  But  both  in  the  Buddhist  and  Tauist  repre- 
sentation of  the  future  state  there  is  the  Persian  bridge, 
across  which  the  righteous  walk  safely  to  Paradise.  It 
is  too  narrow  and  slippery  for  the  evil-doer,  who  falls 
into  the  abyss  below,  where  he  is  in  hopeless  darkness 
for  ever. 

This  is  the  Persian  doctrine,  and  it  has  been  borrowed 
from  Persia  by  the  Mohamedans. 

The  Japanese  have  for  Hades  the  phrase  yomi  no 
Kuni,  Kuni  is  '  kingdom,^  the  same  as  the  Manchu 
gurun,  '  kingdom.'  No  is  the  mark  of  the  genitive,  and 
is  of  pronominal  origin.  The  same  genitive  is  found  in 
Mongol.  Yomi, '  the  invisible  world,'  is  in  Mongol  tarn, 
'  hell'  This  is  the  Semitic  t(fman,  '  to  hide,'  and  it  is 
also  in  Sanscrit  tamas, '  darkness,'  and  our  own  word  dim. 

How  did  this  idea  reach  Japan  ?  It  is  found  in  the 
age  before  Buddhism,  and  can  only  be  traced  to  the 
Zoroastrian    propaganda.       Teinanh    is    'darkness'    in 


134  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR  EAST 

Zend.  It  must  have  gone  from  Persia  through  Mon- 
golia, and  in  the  MongoHan  and  Manchurian  circle  of 
ideas  we  have  Ahuramazda  as  the  name  of  God  in  the 
modern  Tartar  form  Hormosda.  We  have  also  fire- 
worship  among  the  Mongols  in  the  form  of  adoration 
paid  in  the  family  tent  to  the  kitchen  god,  named  lord 
of  fire  by  Mongols,  and  god  of  the  cooking  stove  by  the 
Chinese. 

There  was  no  distinct  teaching  of  the  future  state  of 
rewards  and  punishments  in  Shamanism.  The  Persians 
brought  it  to  the  Tartar  nations,  and  the  reason  why  the 
Buddhists  taught  it  was  that  they  learned  it  from  the 
Persians.  They  expanded  the  Persian  heaven  and  hell, 
and  made  them  a  field  for  the  exercise  of  the  mercy 
of  Buddha  in  saving  the  victims  of  sin  and  delusion. 

In  China  in  the  Han  dynasty  the  aid  of  poetry  was 
afforded  to  help  in  the  elevation  of  the  minds  of  the 
people  by  the  longing  for  a  future  world  of  happiness. 

In  the  year  A.  D.  220  the  new  emperor  Wei  Wen-ti, 
who  had  just  received  the  resignation  of  the  last  of  the 
Han  emperors,  and  himself  assumed  the  title  of  Hwang-ti, 
was  desirous  of  refreshment  one  evening  in  his  garden. 
He  was  taken  in  his  chariot  to  the  western  garden  at 
Lo-yang  on  the  Yellow  River,  in  the  province  of  Honan, 
where  the  palace  then  was.  He  rose  from  the  imperial 
vehicle,  and  walked  in  the  garden,  and  on  returning 
wrote  a  short  poem  describing  his  reflections.  It  con- 
sisted of  eighty  words  in  rhyming  lines  of  five  words 
each.  He  speaks  of  two  brooks  which  cooled  and 
watered  the  garden,  and  the  high  trees  which  followed 
their  windings.  The  lower  branches  brushed  against 
the  cover  of  the  chariot.     The  upper  seemed  to  touch 


EARLY  SPREAD   OF  BELIEF  IN  A   FUTURE  STATE    1 35 

the  blue  sky.  A  fresh  breeze  helped  the  chariot  wheels 
forward.  He  noticed  the  birds  which  flew  up  and  down 
in  front,  and  looking  up  he  saw^  the  clouds,  which  were 
just  now  red  with  the  sunset  glow  seeming  to  clasp  the 
bright  moon.  Brilliant  stars  were  coming  out  to  view 
here  and  there  among  the  clouds.  The  firmament  poured 
down  a  many-coloured  light.  Among  the  five  colours 
it  was  hard  to  say  which  was  the  freshest-looking.  After 
proceeding  so  far  the  emperor's  thoughts  changed.  He 
said,  What  of  life  ?  and  the  length  of  life  ?  Are  Sung 
Chi-tzi'  and  Wang  Ch'iau  the  only  favoured  ones  who 
can  become  immortal  and  divine  ? 

Let  us  stop  here  and  think.  What  made  the  monarch 
ask  about  the  soul's  immortality  and  divinity?  Cato 
asked  the  same  thing  in  Addison's  tragedy.  'This  in 
a  moment  brings  me  to  my  end.  But  this  informs  me 
I  shall  never  die.'  Cato  knew  books  of  philosophy,  and 
in  regard  to  the  immortality  of  the  soul  he  said  :  '  It 
must  be  so.  Plato,  thou  reasonest  well.'  He  belonged 
to  the  republican  party,  and  as  a  friend  of  Cicero  he 
would  join  in  the  philosophical  discussions  carried  on 
then  in  Cicero's  Tusculan  Villa,  and  in  other  favourite 
places  of  resort.  The  one  died  B.C.  46  and  the  other 
B.  c.  44.  The  immortality  of  the  soul  would  be  a  moot 
question  there  ;  but  how  would  the  Chinese  monarch  in 
his  pleasure  garden  near  the  Yellow  River  know  about 
it  ?     Buddhism  had  been  two  centuries  in  the  country. 

Further,  the  Tauist  religion  had  a  doctrine  of  immorta- 
lity. The  6ther  personages  mentioned  in  the  poem  are 
Tauists.  Sung  Chi-tse  was  an  ancient  philosopher.  But 
there  was  another  author  of  the  fourth  century  also 
named  Sung,  and  it  is  he  that  probably  is  here  meant. 


136  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

He  believed  in  immortality,  and  persuaded  the  kings  of 
the  Chihli  and  Northern  Shantung  of  those  days  to  send 
messengers  across  the  sea  in  search  of  the  isles  of  the 
genii.  They  are  the  same  islands  that  the  philosophers 
who  followed  the  doctrine  of  Lautsi'  believed  in  and 
wrote  about.  Hindu  and  Persian  ideas  of  the  future 
life  had  at  this  time  so  far  spread  in  China  that  these 
ideas  abound  in  the  writings  of  Lietsi'  and  Chwangtsi. 
The  happy  beings  across  the  sea  were  the  immortal 
genii  of  islands.  Wang-ch'iau  represents  the  immortal 
genii  of  mountains.  In  Chinese  poetry  he  is  a  subject 
of  favourite  allusion,  because  he  sent  a  message  to  his 
kindred,  requesting  them  to  meet  him  upon  the  Howshe 
mountain  where,  as  a  Tauist  philosopher,  he  had  been 
living  for  thirty  years.  At  the  time  appointed  he  was 
seen  riding  in  the  air  on  a  white  crane.  He  waved  adieu 
to  the  world  and  ascended  to  the  realms  of  the  genii. 
This  was  a  few  years  before  the  birth  of  Confucius, 
early  m  the  sixth  century,  and  therefore  it  took  place  not 
long  before  the  Confucian  philosophy  presented  in  the 
Four  Books  during  the  fifth,  fourth,  and  third  centuries 
was  completed.  The  doctrine  of  immortality  came  into 
the  country  then.  Poetry  kept  it  before  the  minds  of  the 
literati,  while  the  Tauist  religion  rose  by  the  force  of  the 
same  idea  into  a  powerful  system,  which  ultimately  crys- 
tallized into  the  modern  Tauist  monastic  institute.  The 
office  of  poetry  henceforth  was  to  furnish  an  explanation 
of  the  problem  of  life.  The  Confucianism  of  the  Four 
Books  evades  this  problem,  and  limits  the  field  of  the 
good  man's  activity  to  present  day  duties,  practical 
morality,  and  utilitarian  politics.  Confucianism,  in  fact, 
has  made  China  the  happy  land  of  the  Comtists. 


EARLY  SPREAD   OF  BELIEF  IN  A   FUTURE  STATE    1 37 

But  what  does  the  Confucianist  lose  ?  Rejecting  the 
duty  of  feeding  the  aspirations  of  the  human  soul  after 
immortality,  which  are  in  fact  irrepressible,  he  resigns 
the  duty  to  the  poets  and  to  the  Tauist  philosophers.  It 
was  for  them  to  take  up  the  cast-away  banner  inscribed 
with  the  word  Immortality.  The  Tauist  philosophers 
took  up  that  banner,  feeling  there-  was  in  the  motto 
'  immortality '  a  depth  and  religious  force  which  nothing 
else  could  give  them  in  their  effort  to  make  their  religion 
national,  and  in  no  long  time  they  elaborated  a  mytho- 
logy for  the  souls  of  the  dead.  The  mind  of  the  poets 
was  drawn  to  the  subject  of  immortal  existence.  Every 
scholar  must  be  a  poet;  that  is  how  things  work  in 
China.  He  begins  at  ten  years  old  to  make  verses. 
Dr.  Watts  in  England  began  at  four,  but  he  was  an 
exception.  They  draw  images  from  the  immortal  genii. 
This  helps  them  to  beautify  death.  As  we  fondly  heap 
flowers  over  the  remains  of  the  beloved  and  honoured, 
so  they  try  to  heap  beautiful  epithets  on  their  honoured 
dead.  For  instance,  the  soul  has  mounted  the  white 
crane  and  gone  to  the  upper  skies.  This  is  a  faint 
echo  from  the  West.  Truth,  when  once  planted  in  the 
world  in  regions  far  removed  from  China,  spreads  like 
the  circular  waves  seen  on  the  surface  of  a  lake  where 
a  stone  has  fallen,  each  outer  circle  becoming  fainter  the 
farther  it  is  from  the  centre  of  the  movement.  So  it  was 
with  the  doctrine  of  immortality  in  other  countries  too. 
How  faint  it  is  in  Virgil !  In  the  Georgics  and  in  the 
Eclogues,  all  except  the  fifth,  you  might  be  in  China. 
Labor  omnia  vincit  would  serve  as  well  as  a  motto  in 
China  as  in  Italy ;  the  agriculture  of  the  two  countries 
is  much  the  same. 


138  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

The  industry  of  the  Chinese  people  cannot  be  ex- 
ceeded in  Italy  or  England.  But  compare  Dante  in 
Italy  and  Milton  in  England  as  exponents  of  lofty 
thought  with  the  best  Chinese  poets.  What  a  differ- 
ence !  The  future  state  has  elevated  thought  and  style, 
rendering  it  more  serious,  more  majestic.  Take  Ger- 
many in  the  Nibelungen.  The  mistiness  of  the  future 
state  is  like  that  of  Homer  and  Virgil.  Come  down  to 
the  Christian  age,  and  the  appearance  of  the  Church 
hymns,  which  form  so  important  a  portion  of  the  litera- 
ture of  Germany,  shows  how  the  idea  of  immortality 
improves  and  elevates  the  poetic  power  of  a  nation. 
Then  we  see  it  in  Klopstock  and  in  Schiller,  while 
Goethe  stood  apart,  and  did  not  seem  to  care.  Among 
the  German  poets  who  have  sung  respecting  the  future 
state  occur  the  names  of  Novalis,  Korner,  Riickert, 
Knapp,  Gerock,  and  others.  The  late  Victor  von  Strauss, 
a  translator  of  the  Tau-te-king  and  other  Chinese  works 
into  German,  is  one  of  the  most  recent. 

The  cause  of  a  certain  poverty  of  thought  in  Chinese 
poetry  is  not  that  they  have  not  beautiful  flowers, 
mountains,  and  landscapes,  but  that  they  need  the 
elevating  power  of  religious  faith;  if  they  obtain  this 
gift,  the  poetic  power  will  rise,  and  in  this  as  in  other 
things  they  will  make  a  progressive  movement  forward. 

The  early  spread  of  the  doctrine  of  the  immortality 
of  the  soul  from  the  land  of  the  Euphrates  and  Tigris 
had  the  result  in  Egypt  of  leading  the  people  of  that 
country  to  embalm  the  dead.  In  Greece  it  produced 
the  mysteries,  and  Homer's  beautiful  episode  of  the 
interviews  held  by  Ulysses  with  the  departed.  In  India 
it   led   to   the  popular  belief  in  the  transmigration  of 


EARLY  SPREAD   OF  BELIEF  IN  A   FUTURE  STATE   I39 

souls.  Among  the  Buddhists  it  caused  the  Writing  of 
a  large  number  of  works  describing  the  happiness  of 
the  good  in  Paradise  and  the  torments  of  the  wicked 
in  hell.  In  China,  Tartary,  and  Japan  many  millions 
of  believers  in  Buddhism  have  died  in  hope  of  entering 
on  the  joyful  life  of  the  Western  Heaven.  The  same 
teaching  crossed  the  sea  and  gave  to  the  South  Sea 
Islanders  a  dim  hope  of  future  happiness  beyond  the 
grave;  and  such  is  the  persistent  longing  which  the 
soul  has  for  a  future  state  of  joy  that  it  also  reached 
North  America,  and  gave  a  sort  of  hope  of  a  future 
state  to  the  Indian  tribes,  who  believe  their  brave  war- 
riors will  live  hereafter  in  those  happy  hunting-grounds 
which  constitute  for  them  the  most  desirable  paradise. 

The  Jews  when  they  met  with  the  Persians  were  led 
to  think  more  of  the  future  state  than  before.  The 
Persians  on  their  part  had  received  the  doctrine  from 
Babylon  and  Assyria.  They  and  the  Jews  were  alike 
indebted  to  God's  first  revelation  in  Babylonia  for  their 
faith  in  a  coming  life  and  a  judgment  of  just  retribution 
hereafter.  The  oldest  record  of  that  revelation  is  that 
from  which  the  account  given  in  Genesis  of  the  paradise 
in  which  our  first  parents  were  placed,  was  translated. 

We  are  brought  back,  to  the  earthly  paradise  itself 
as  the  scene  of  the  first  revelation  of  immortality  by 
God  to  His  creature  man.  The  higher  criticism  of  the 
passing  hour  tells  us  that  Genesis  is  legendary.  The 
investigation  of  Eastern  religions  appears  to  me  to  show 
that  Genesis  is  historical,  and  is  our  best  guide  in 
seeking  to  know  the  origin  of  religious  ideas.  The 
gradual  spread  of  these  ideas  in  the  various  countries 
of  Asia  in  early  times  shows,  beyond  contradiction,  that 


I40  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

the  radiatron  of  spiritual  light  throughout  that  continent 
came  from  the  same  country  where  science  and  philo- 
sophy also  took  their  rise.  The  primaeval  revelations 
of  God  to  mankind  stirred  to  activity  the  spiritual 
nature  of  humanity,  and  this  spiritual  movement  was 
the  main  cause  of  the  intellectual  movement  which  led 
men  to  make  early  progress  in  useful  inventions  and  in 
scientific  thought.  The  Book  of  Genesis,  by  giving  us 
Babylonian  documents,  unveils  to  us  the  wider  scope 
of  primaeval  revelation,  and  helps  us  to  see  more  clearly 
in  the  depths  of  ancient  time  the  great  love  of  God  in 
revealing  Himself  to  our  first  progenitors. 


CHRONOLOGICAL   TABLE 


*/  I  am  indebted  for  Babylonian  and  Egyptian  dates  to  Hommers  work 
Die  Vorsemitischen  Kulturen  in  Aegypten  und  Babylonien. 

B.C. 

4000  The  supposed  age  of  Menes,  B.C.  3890,  and  beginning  of  the  art 
of  writing  in  Egypt. 

In  Egypt,  Persia  (then  called  Elam)  and  Babylonia  high  civilization 
prevailed  at  this  time. 

The  Semites  were  still  in  High  or  Central  Asia  at  this  period,  and 
their  language  was  under  the  consolidating  influence  of  the  Mongolian 
and  Tibetan  types. 

Gradually  they  occupied  Persia,  and  this  is  the  reason  that  Elam  is 
in  Genesis  x.  counted  among  the  sons  of  Shem. 

The  Aryans  were  in  Europe  consolidating  their  language  probably 
during  the  whole  of  this  fourth  millennium. 

3000  At  this  time,  when  the  fourth  Egyptian  dynasty  was  reigning,  or 
thereabouts,  the  Aryan  race  came  from  Europe,  where  they  had 
settled  temporarily,  and  conquered  the  Pamir  plateau  and  the  lands 
watered  by  the  Oxus  and  Jaxartes.  They  then  conquered  Persia  and 
North- Western  India.  The  Semites  driven  westward  overwhelmed 
the  Babylonian  plain  and  Arabia.  The  Semitic  mother  tongue  now 
broke  up  into  (confusion  of  tongues)  Babylonish -Assyrian,  Aramaic, 
Hebrew,  Phoenician,  Arabic,  Sabean,  and  Ethiopic.  Accordingly  in 
Hommel's  Table  of  the  first  period  of  development  in  the  Semite  lan- 
guage, he  states  that  about  B.C.  2000  to  B.C.  500  the  areas  occupied 
by  the  six  Semitic  languages  were  these  here  mentioned,  as  well  as 
the  trans-marine  colonial  possessions  in  Africa,  Spain,  Sardinia,  and 
Sicily,  which  were  slowly  acquired  at  a  long  interval  after  those  in 
Western  Asia. 

2870  The  oldest  Accadian  inscription  yet  known  is  that  found  at  Mugheir 
(Ur),  the  king  Urbagas  with  his  son  Dungi,  erected  a  temple  about 
this  time  to  the  moon  god,  Sin. 

2852  The  Chinese  emperor,  Fuhi,  according  to  the  received  chronology, 
first  taught  his  people  a  rough  beginning  in  the  art  of  writing.  We 
may  suppose  then  that  it  was  about  B.C.  3000  that  the  Chinese  en- 
tered their  country,  driven  from  Central  Asia  by  the  invasion  of  the 
Aryans,  and  seeking  a  new  home  where  they  could  peacefully  follow 
agriculture  as  they  had  done  before  in  Turkestan  and  Persia.     Fuhi 


142  RELIGIOUS  IDEAS  IN  THE  FAR   EAST 

B.C. 

also  introduced  the  Babylonian  philosophy  of  the  elements  accom 
panied  by  divination. 

2700  The  Chinese  emperor,  Hwangti,  introduced  among  his  people  the 
use  of  the  denary  cycle  for  days,  and  the  art  of  writing. 

2600  Sixth  Egyptian  dynasty.  There  is  an  inscription  of  this  date  of 
Amar-sin,  king  of  Eridu,  found  in  situ  on  a  brick  of  a  temple 
to  Ea. 

2400       Eleventh  Egyptian  dynasty. 

2356  The  Chinese  emperor  Yan  introduced  from  Babylon  the  astrolabe, 
the  twenty-eight  constellations,  and  the  nineteen  year  cycle  of  the 
moon. 

2300  Singashit,  Semitic  king  of  Erech  (Warka),  restored  the  temple 
E-anna,  '  House  of  heaven,'  founded  by  Ur-bagas. 

2255       Age  of  Shun,  Chinese  emperor. 

2200       Chammuragas,  king  of  Babylon,  conquered  Larsa. 
Twelfth  Egyptian  dynasty. 

Foundation  of  the  Chinese  djmasty  of  Hia  under  the  emperor 
Ta  yli. 

The  age  of  the  Hyksos,  the  shepherd  kings  of  Egypt,  commenced 
about  this  time. 

2000       The  Hyksos  probably  ruled  Egypt  from  B.C.  2200  to  B.C.  1700. 

1 766  Foundation  of  the  Chinese  dynasty  Shang  by  the  emperor  Ch'eng- 
t'ang. 

Eighteenth  Egyptian  dynasty,  B.C.  1700  to  B.C.  1450. 

1490  to  1300  The  nineteenth  Egyptian  dynasty.  Exodus  of  the  Hebrew 
race  from  Egypt  under  Moses.  They  were  driven  out  with  the  Hyksos 
at  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  dynasty. 

II 22       The  Chinese  Wen  wang  founded  the  Chow  dynasty. 
Clepsydra  and  Sun-dial  introduced  from  Babylon. 

830  Nabubaliddin,  king  of  Babylon.  Cylinders  of  this  king  were  found 
by  Rassam  at  the  ancient  Agade  or  Accad  at  a  spot  sixteen  miles 
S.W.  of  Babylon.  Sippar  was  here  also,  a  city  under  the  protection 
of  Ishtar.  It  is  the  same  with  Sepharvaim  of  scripture.  The 
cylinders  are  of  the  age  of  Nabunaid.  There  was  a  Sun  temple 
there  called  E-babbarra. 

800  About  this  time  Babylonian  astrology  was  introduced  in  China  and 
the  worship  of  the  Five  Elemental  gods. 

550  Nabunaid,  king  of  Babylon,  when  engaged  in  repairing  the  temple 
in  Ur  to  the  moon  god,  found  a  brick  recording  the  foundation  of  the 
same  temple  by  Urbagas  of  date  2370,  and  completion  by  his  son 
Dungi. 

About  this  time  the  Tauist  religion  was  founded  by  Lautsi,  and  the 
Confucian  religion  by  Confucius.  Previous  to  this  there  Jad  been  but 
one  religion  in  China. 


INDEX 


Adonis,  story  of,  120. 
Amaterasu,  the  sun-goddess  of  Japan,  ag. 
Ancestral  worship  in  China,  27. 
Animal  names,  etymology  of,  83. 
Animals,  worship  of,  97, 
Astrology,  Chinese,  46,  70. 
Astronomy,  Babylonian,  49. 
Atman,  ideas  about,  79. 

Babylonians,  the,  astronomy  of,  49 ;  my- 
thology of,  50 ;  their  account  of  creation, 

43- 
'  Bamboo  Book  of  Records,'  the,  16. 
Bon  religion,  the,  19. 
Book  of  Acts  of  Days,  16. 
Book  of  Divination,  the,  74. 
Book  of  History,  the,  72,  74. 
Book  of  Laws  ^  the,  75. 
Book  of  Odes^  Chinese,  quotation  from, 

31- 
Brightness,  an  attribute  of  God,  41. 
Buddhism,  teaching  of,  no,  113,  116,  132. 

Calendar,  Mohammedan,  in  China,  29. 

Carvings,  Chinese,  93. 

China,  physical  description  of,  102. 

Chinese,  the,  origin  of  their  idea  of  God, 
22 ;  deities  of,  22 ;  sacrifices  of,  22 ; 
astrology  of,  46,  70 ;  early  purity  of 
belief  of,  47 ;  polytheism  of,  69 ;  star- 
worship  of,  70 ;  spirit-worship  of,  84  ; 
composition  of,  84,  loi  ;  origin  of  early 
morality  of,  99,  103 ;  golden  age  of, 
102  ;  earlj  monotheism  of,  109  ;  present 
immorality  of,  114;  their  ideas  of  the 
soul,  118. 

Chow  dynasty,  the,  74. 

Chow  Kung,  74. 

Chii-yuen,  the  poet,  history  of,  85. 

Confucius,  books  in  the  time  of,  65 ; 
witness  of,  77  ;  teaching  of,  99. 

Creation,  Babylonian  account  of,  43. 

Cuneiform  writing,  invention  of,  17. 

Cycle,  Chinese,  75. 

Dagon,  worship  of,  59.  * 

Deities,  Chinese,  22. 

Divination,  history  of,  63  ;  practice  of,  73. 

Dualism,  history  of,  28. 


Elements,  the  five  Chinese,  23. 

Elohim,  use  of  the  word,  53. 

Etymology  of  the  name  Mithras,  29  ;  of 
names  of  God,  36 ;  of  Varuna,  48 ; 
of  word//,  73,  77  ;  of  mythologic  names, 
81 ;  of  animal  names,  8^  ;  of  term  for 
opium  smoking,  104  ;  ©^  various  moral 
terms,  104 ;  of  various  Chinese  terms, 
118,  125;  of  various  Japanese  terms, 
133- 

Fei-ch'eng  hien,  sculptures  at,  94. 
Fire-worship,  45. 

Five  Emperors,  worship  of  the,  ^6. 
Flood,  the,  traditions  of,  45. 
Fu-chien,  a  teacher,  88. 
Future  state,  belief  in  a,  24  ;  spread  of, 
66,  116. 

Genealogies  of  Genesis,  the,  16. 

Generations,  book  of,  17. 

Genesis,  Book  of,  authority  of,  15  ;  pre- 
servation of,  16 ;  prae-Mosaic,  17;  made 
for  Joseph,  18  ;  sacrifices  in,  44. 

God,  names  of,  in  the  Pentateuch,  35 ; 
etymology  of,  36. 

Golden  age  of  the  Chinese,  the,  102. 

Great  Bear  god,  the,  95. 

Green  dragon,  the,  70,  74. 

Hades,  the  Chinese  and  Japanese,  120. 
Han  Wu-ti,  palace  of,  93. 
Hermes,  identity  of,  49. 
Hormosda,  worship  of,  24. 
How  Han  Shu,  the,  131. 
Hung  fan,  the,  'ja. 

Immorality,  present  Chinese,  114. 
Intuition,  moral,  106. 
Inundations  in  China,  102. 
Izanami,  legend  of,  120. 

Japan,  Persian  influences  in,  121. 
Jehovah,  use  of  the  word,  53. 
Jemshed  legends,  the.  26. 
Joseph  and  Book  of  Genesis,  16. 
Josephus  on  genealogies,  16. 

Kan  Tsiuen  Kung,  the,  93. 


144 


INDEX 


Karen  traditions,  ^t. 

Keu-mang,  the  spirit  of  the  east,  92. 

Kia-siang  hien,  sculptures  at,  94. 

Kin  Shi  So,  pictures  in,  93. 

Kitchen  god,  the,  45. 

Kwei,  etymology  of  the  term,  118. 

Kwun-lun,  92. 

Language,  history  of,  19;  influenced  by 

life,  123. 
Lares  and  Penates,  82. 
Lautsi,  views  of,  77. 
Liau  chai^  the,  98. 

Life,  influence  of,  upon  language,  123. 
Lyetsi,  stones  of,  127. 

Manichaean  mission  in  China,  26. 

Mencius,  witness  of,  TJ. 

Mercury,  identity  of,  49. 

Migration,  lines  of,  84. 

Mithras,  worship  of,  25. 

Mohammedanism,  58. 

Monotheism,  morality  of,  32  ;  history  of, 

22,  34, 59  ;  antiquity  of,  71,  109  ;  effects 

of,  iio.' 
Moral  terms,  etymology  of  Chinese,  104. 
Morality,  early  Chinese,  99. 
Mu  Kung,  dreams  of,  31. 
Mythology,  Chinese,  22 ;  Babylonian,  50. 

Names,  mythologic,  81. 
Nebo,  identity  of^  49. 
Nestorian  mission  in  China,  26. 
Nirvana,  the,  117. 
Noah,  the  Chinese,  45. 

Opium  smoking,  etymology  of  term  for, 
104. 

Pa  Kwa,  the,  78. 

Pan-ku,  the  poet,  85. 

Pentateuch,  the,  names  of  God  in,  35 ; 

date  of,  52. 
Persian  sacrifices,  23  ;  mythology,  28. 
Pictures,  use  of,  46. 
Poetry,  Chinese^  84,  loi. 
Polynesian  mythology,  66. 
Polytheism,  Chinese,  69. 
Prose  composition,  Chinese,  84. 
Purity  of  early  Chinese  belief,  47. 

Queen  of  the  West,  worship  of,  91. 

Ra,  the  sun  god,  67. 
Red  bird,  the,  70. 
Red  mountain,  the,  131. 
Revelation,    origin    of,    14;    vestiges    of 
primaeval,  20. 


Sacrifices,  the  round  or  spread  out,  22  ; 

the  looking,  23  ;  human,  24 ;  various,  44. 
Sculptures,  Chinese,  94. 
Serpent,  the,  70. 
Shamanism,  19. 
Shan  Hai  King^  the,  91. 
Shang  dynasty,  the,  72. 
Shangti,  sacrifice  to,  22. 
She  King^  idea  of  revelation  in,  ^o. 
Shen,  etymology  of,  1 18. 
Shinto  religion,  19. 
Shu  Kzngy  the,  100. 
Shun,  the  emperor,  sacrifice  of,  22  ;  age 

of,  lOI. 
Sina,  the  m  oon-god,  6^. 
Sosiosh,  14. 

Soul,  Chinese  ideas  of  the,  1 18. 
Star-worship,  69. 
Statues,  use  of,  46. 
Su  wen,  the,  78. 
Sung  dynasty,  the,  works  of,  121. 

Tai-yi,  story  of,  86. 

Tang,  the  emperor,  worship  of,  72,  100. 

Tau,  the  doctrine  of,  89. 

Tauism,  19 ;  history  of,  78  ;  teaching  of, 

113,  126. 
Tauist  temple,  Peking,  132. 
Tau  te  King^  monotheism  of,  81. 
Ti,  etymology  of  the  word,  73. 
Tortoise,  the,  70. 
Tree  of  life,  the,  66. 
Trinity,  history  of  the  idea  of,  52. 
Tsau  hwa  chu,  80. 
Tsi  ch'an,  legends  of,  127. 
Tsi-nan  fu,  carvings  at,  93. 
Tung  Kiiin,  the  poem,  86. 

Universal  offering,  the,  23. 

Varuna,  etymology  of  the  word,  48. 
Vedas,  the,  development  of,  47. 
Venus,  Chinese  worship  of,  40. 

Wang-ch'iau,  88. 

Wen  wang,  74. 

World,  the,  size  of,  92. 

Wu  hien,  an  astronomer,  72. 

Yama,  the  god  of  the  dead,  48. 
Yang-ku,  the  valley  of,  90. 
Yau,  the  age  of,  10 1. 

Zendavesta,  the,  19  ;  idea  of  revelation  in, 

30- 
Zoroaster,  history  of,  25. 
Zoroastrianism,  24. 


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